The Angry Butterfly

A Wedding Present

2010-07-26T15:36:00.003-04:00

Why, hello there! Remember me? No, I am not returning to WoW - I'm not happy with what I see as it filters through my sources of friends and acquaintances - as much as old guildees tell me that Cataclysm will make a decent enough casual experience, I cannot go back unbiased. After all, how do they expect a girl to stay in Muglore once she's seen Shattrath, er, or something like that...

While I have no intentions of rebooting the ol' account, I thought I would share with you one of the most awesome wedding presents I received:

It's Neg! How awesome is that! The gift-giver was a college friend of mine, whom I've never played with before, but we did chat it up frequently in the dorm lounge, swapping progression tales and boss strats. Tehvitan, thanks for a great wedding gift :D

The big day has come and gone, and it was a splendid occasion - I wish it had lasted longer! Everything went well, and now we can get back into the swing of things. Grad school starts August 23rd, and FFXIV comes out for PC in September. Yes, I will be back to blogging (I hope), though I might be a bit behind. The Boy is insisting on playing with me on his PS3, but as of right now, the game isn't released for PS3 until February or March. I think I've convinced him to let me have a three month head start on him, since I do love questing and all that, so we'll see. Once the blog is up and running, I'll be sure to post it for interested parties.

May the winds guide you...

2010-04-06T10:42:00.002-04:00

I've played a lot on my lower level alts lately, and by doing so realized one of the greatest reasons for my departure from WoW. Reliving all of the original content made me nostalgic for the days of the 60 level cap and every ability we had access to then. Imbalanced and imperfect, they were not well thought out in the long run, but they were intricate and detailed. The thought of reliving the old world with all of our new spells and attacks, buffs and balance, just doesn't seem fair to the original Azeroth. Call me old fashioned and selfish, but I just can't do it over again. The part of me that celebrates the recycling of new material just doesn't outweigh the part of me that loves the way it was, so instead of continuing to play something I dislike, I will take my leave instead. I want my last memories of the game to be one I enjoyed, not one unrecognizable. I wish everyone who has come this far still eager to adventure on every bit of luck, and may you draw from the game as much pleasure as I did.

It does seem that I am leaving rather randomly, with no particular cause of departure. It was just time - there's not much else I can say. I have a wedding to plan, summer research to prepare for, grad school to languish in, and undergrads to torment. I've been out of college for near a year now, and the world is calling.

I didn't get to see the Lich King fall as I had planned, but strangely, I don't feel cheated of it. I reached a level of gear that satisfies me, and really, I think that's all the matters for this raider. There was a lot I did feel cheated about with this expansion, but I think I've already ranted about that enough about that in the past, so I'll spare it in this good-bye. However, since the account cancellation page wouldn't let me post my full 'additional' comments on why I quit the game, I shall list them here (chock-full of the anger and sarcasm that you all love so much):

Directly regarding “The game got too popular/overcrowded”:
The lore and direction of the game reflected the overpopulation. Too much emphasis on the Light, and the dumb-ification of game play. Quest helper? Please, don’t encourage people to read and make simple deductions...

The marginalization of mid-level progressive raiders, where all rare rewards are either made common (the Ulduar drakes, still in existence with 3.3 and a complete joke to acquire at that point) or improbable of attaining (the ToC mounts). The mid-level raiders were grouped with the casual players in terms of rewards, and only the most elite of the elite received any aesthetic glorification.

It took 40 people to kill Kel’thuzud, but only 10 to kill Arthas.

More esoterically:
Two expansion later, I still, as a Tauren, cannot enter or exit the UC elevators on any mount larger than a wolf.

Undead Hunters. I mean, really? You are willing to bend the rules to allow Tauren their first cloth class and introduce a plethora of Holy Cow jokes, but you can’t give Undead the one class that makes sense considering you are aligning Human and Undead classes: Paladins. I suppose you are more willing to ignore the rules you’ve established with regard to Life/Earth Mother, but not with Holy/The Light. Not a fan.

Aspect of the Dragonhawk never got an original animation or sound file.

Abomination’s Might overwrites Trueshot Aura, which particularly obvious now that Abomination's Might has become an aura. How demeaning. My ability has been in the game since it was at the bottom of my talent tree, and I don’t even get to see it as my buff because this “hero class” introduced with the most recent expansion has to spend two talent points on it compared to my one.

Evidently all the races in Northrend can be represented by a male, since every time my Deathbringer's Will procs, I suddenly lose my 'Matron' title and earn 'Patron'. Noooo, that doesn't get old *fast*.

Yeah, most are silly, dumb, and just plain bitchy, they are all just little nagging bits that have affected my love of the game. There is probably more to it than just what I listed above, but I think it would be reaching even more that the blatant points I already stretched. It's obvious I don't like the whole 'Light' concept - I think it is a cop-out to call all "good" one thing and all "bad" another; making them into embodied magicks simplifies things that shouldn't be simplified. It's probably a coincidence that they ran with these themes in the third expansion when the player base was the larger than it had ever been before, but I don't think they had to be as predominant as they played them up to be. There was so much potential in all the lore to be had, but in the end, everything was dumbed down. No doubt I want the impossible.

I'm going to miss the intricacies, the complications. It seems silly to think that one can actually feel nostalgia for days of non-stop grinding, but I remember being happy spending so many hours in the Burning Steppes, killing black dragonkin for gold and scales. I remember being excited about raiding Molten Core, and worrying about getting lost in Blackrock Depths or Lower Blackrock Spire. I recall wondering about Ahn'Qiraj and freaking about the event that sent strange elite mobs all over the map. What fraction of hunters actually know that the Zod in their bow's name came from a mob that spawned during that event?

In the end, I became happiest not while I was raiding, but when I was farming. Raiding didn't become a challenge any more. That's not to say that all the fights were easy, but they just didn't have the same intensity. My attempts at the Lich King showed me the most annoying fight since Archimonde. The last boss of all Warcraft lore, and he's left in the dust by the end boss of the first tier (or second, I suppose, if you classify by the loot he drops) 40man raid instance. Few bosses can hold a candle to Rangaros, and it's quite disappointing that we never got to see anything to rival the experience two expansions later. But then again, I suppose you just can't have that effect in a 10man. Farming, on the other hand, brought back that feeling of nostalgia for the days when spending hours of tedious activity - killing, looting, running, mining, herbing, wiping, rezzing - was required in order to get something done. Whether it meant getting gold for consumables, farming to gear a raid in shadow resistance, or spending hours in raid, learning a tricky boss strategy, it was those that dedicated time towards an end goal that received the pay off. Now, we just have farming, and I don't want to play this game just to farm.

Most of all, I'm going to miss Neg. What a character she was, what a history she had. She was one of those people that I would have done anything to see come to life, to tower over her companions, stoic and watchful. I can honestly say I put my heart into Neg, and I hate to think this form of her will be done and over. We enjoyed a weekend together in Warsong Gulch one last time - it was a fitting good-bye. She's in Feralas forever now, bow in hand, and Tinea at her side. Her sisters are in spots that mean the most to them, Ranrele in Moonglade and Zinaida in Dragonblight. Greatmother Chasle is in Thunder Bluff, ever vigilant for her clan. Their days ended with contentment.

Like a true recluse, I gave away all my gold and mats to friends old and new. People that will play will get more use out of such things than someone who will never play again. Most of my old friends are gone, but I scattered my raiding consumables to those that still are, including the three hunters I raided with for years. The trio of guys that brought me into their group received gifts and thanks as well. I valued every friendship I gained in the over four years of playing and wouldn't exchange the experience for the world.

Which brings us to you, my gentle readers. I thank you for your responses, your patience, and your interested minds. I doubt I would have kept this up if I didn't think people could use what I wrote in some fashion. I will miss writing more than you will miss reading. I have no plans as of now to start anew - personal blogs are more like diaries than anything else, and I don't particularly like that. I have tentative plans to try Final Fantasy XIV when it comes out, and perhaps I'll blog about that. I have other writing projects, some years old, that can keep me occupied. Negathle and her family will live on, just not in Tauren form.

I will miss you all and hope that where ever you wander, the winds will be sweet and bring with them adventure and happiness.

Cheers,
Rea

The Pull

2010-03-28T00:07:00.002-04:00

Since I PuG more often then not these days, I find I get a lot of tells requesting my opening shot rotation.

Here it is:

Misdirect -> Serpent Sting with Rapid Fire/Call of the Wild Macro and Kill Command-> Chimera Shot -> Aimed Shot ->
Readiness
->Misdirect -> Chimera Shot -> Aimed Shot and Kill Command -> Steady -> Steady -> etc. until Rapid Fire is done, then pop it again.

This is a massive amount of damage within the first 15 seconds or so, particularly with any number of trinket, pet abilities, and set bonus procs.

However, the one single greatest annoyance I have after listing all this out is when they ask afterward, "Why Misdirect?" And I never fail to answer, "Because there is absolutely no reason not to."

I understand that in order to remain competitive in the Big Name Guilds you want to be smart about your cooldown usage. It's a cutthroat DPS race on the meters out there, and the last thing you want to do is waste some potential-damage GCDs on a support spell. But this is not the time to be stingy about your GCD - this is the pull. The raid is setting up positions, tanks are moving the boss, most debuffs are still being applied. Right now, hunters OWN the damage, and with that comes some acceptance of sacrifice for the greater good. And really, with the amount of damage that you can do in the three seconds following that second Misdirect, it is more like the Best Possible Good You Could Ever Do.

So, no, don't waste a GCD on a Misdirect when the tank is so far above everyone else you can see his pink panties, but do be smart about the support spells you own. It is part of the class and expected of you to use it with the same intelligence that determines your cooldown rotation. As Ms. Martha would say, "It's a Good Thing."

On Healing

2010-03-26T12:30:00.002-04:00

I suck at it.

Really, that's all I have to say.

Okay, okay, my total experiences thus far have included one Setthek Halls run and two Utgaurd Keeps. But, really, I'm terrible at keeping everyone up during a boss fight. Usually at least one DPS dies, and I'm unsure of how to improve myself.

My greatest annoyance so far is the fact that I essentially need two different spellbars/UI set ups in order to be an effective healer and still have the same configuration for my usual DPS-mode. I need to be able to see everything that pertains to me in the group as a healer, but I could care less as a DPS. It rather sucks. I also need to find a listing for all those nifty mouse-over macros and start using them - I'm sure that would help as well.

I don't think healing is good for my anger-management issues regarding DPS doing what they should, either. Just the other night, I ran a GDKP ToC25 to satisfy the weekly raid, and one roughly-equally geared hunter out-DPS'd me by a good amount on most fights. Why? Because he wasn't killing the adds. And now that I'm a healer and totally dependent on the DPS to take care of things like that, I can't see this boding well for the growing twitch in my eye.

I'll keep at it though. Maybe it'll grow on me.

Fuck Zod's

2010-03-20T23:01:00.003-04:00

Despite not personally killing the Lich King just yet, we plowed ahead on ICC10 Hard Modes, and Lady Deathwhisper decided to reward me for it. It feels sooooo good using a bow again, and I doubt I'll be replacing it any time soon.

It does seem that most of my posts lately have just been loot updates, but I'm sorry to say I haven't been playing very much to warrant a post! I've been tinkering on my baby boomkin - even practicing *gasp* healing! - but otherwise my RL has been keeping me very busy.

IT IS MINE

2010-03-12T14:07:00.003-05:00

It only cost me 19,000g.

Cons: Every single time the trinket procs, I receive notification that I am now Patron Negathle instead of Matron Negathle. This gets extremely tiring very quickly.

You can't mount when it is procced.

Every race is male, evidently.

Pros: EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT.

A Dilemma

2010-03-11T10:00:00.003-05:00

When I discovered that one of the officers of my Turalyon guild had returned to server, I was intrigued. His health hadn't been doing well, and despite his less than, how shall we say, amicable attitude, I was genuinely concerned for his well-being. After chatting for a bit, he suggested I apply to the guild that had replaced and surpassed our guild. After all, it had absorbed several other guildees, and he could vouch for me. I provided the usual excuses (costs, time, etc), but I did app out of morbid curiosity. Ah, who am I kidding. I want to fucking raid again. Really RAID. At least, I think I do.

Initially, my app was put on hold, and I admit I breathed a sigh of relief. Half of me has really been enjoying having four evenings off to get things done around the house, watching a movie with the Boy, spending time in the outside world. I was okay with my app being backlogged and even forgotten. A few days latter, however, I received notice that they would be interested in trying me. So much for that plan.

Half of me thinks this is the jump start I need to enjoy the game to the end. Half of me thinks I should just let it go and move on with my life. I just got accepted to grad school at the University of Virginia. I have a wedding coming up in July. I have local friends OUTSIDE THE GAME *gasp*. I think I'm going to say no. I really don't want to say no.

Being an adult sucks.

On Writing

2010-03-09T21:03:00.003-05:00

I greatly dislike how lax I have become with the Butterfly, probably as much as I dislike how little the game means to me right now. I look back at my archive of posts, startled at how much content I was able to pump out to keep the masses entertained, even if the posts were frivolous. I made thirty-five posts in October of 2008; I'm lucky if I can squeeze out ten per month now. I love writing, but it fairly obvious my inspiration is running dry. After all, back in the day there were rants about spec inequalities or cheering on about new content to come to fill up the blogosphere. Today, there's just not much.

I have stories. Oh, do I have stories. Wonderful RP adventures regarding Negathle and her sisters, their history, their loves. But fiction cannot be forced, at least not in my case. It has to stew. It has to cook over time and absorb the aromas of details. Inspiration is a melting point - the heat builds up until the story suddenly flows. How many plots and ideas have I typed away on paper, only to be stored away in some folder, waiting for the melting point to be reached, if it ever does.

Not all stores are fiction either, but I am coming to find that most stories now are mostly laments than narratives. I could tell you how much I feel my guild as fallen, that the raiders of today are nothing like the raiders of yesteryear. Loot falls into their lap now. Just the other day one was day dreaming about a hypothetical fight that requires four tanks, the DPS and healers split up into separate duties and jobs. "That sounds just like... Al'ar," I said in gchat and was promptly ignored. Rants come easy to me know, and I don't like it. This is the Angry Butterfly, but that anger is turning more into depression, and the Depressed Butterfly just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Of course, there is always news, but news for a particular blog has to be news that is exciting to that blog, and not much news is very interesting to me anymore. I still read MMOChamp daily, but I admit that's all I have interest in, besides what filters though the blogosphere. I don't even have Warcraft fanned on Facebook. Why? Because it's simply too big, too popular. Thousands of bloggers and forums out there have already nitpicked the new information to death. My thoughts/concerns/rants are overlapping, and my apathy means I simply don't investigate as much as I used to. Fuck, how do you instigate hard/heroic modes in ICC again? What are the two BiS trinkets now? How is focus not like energy?

When things get too big and too popular, they lose their appeal. When everyone knows what you are saying when you announce "I finally dinged 80 on my Boomkin, and I'm starting to farm heroics" you are no longer a member of an exclusive club. It used to be fun to find someone else who played and trade server names and play styles - a secret handshake, if you will. But just the other day I met a lovely lady through a Meetup group who admitted to me (and the rest of the group) her great nerdy hobby is leveling her hunter. What are the odds? Well, significantly greater than it was two years ago. I wasn't particularly surprised (though I wondered why she directed the confession to me - had I let some piece of WoW jargon slip in conversation without even noting? I really do wonder how much I do this...) - but how do you write for a generation of gamers who probably has little to no appreciation for the times when specs were not equal, purple was not the color of a common raider, and knowing how to manage a shot rotation was crucial?

I suppose that's why I've always appreciated Pike's writing. She admitted coming up with topics was never easy, but she always pulled through, even if it was posting about something as common as a bank alt. She's taking time off from the game to let her creativity blossom elsewhere, but I am grateful the WoW community had the opportunity to be the recipient of her arts. I always wished I could satisfy the readers as well as she did, but I suppose, what with necessity being the mother of invention and all that, having a greater reader base had a hand in inspiration for posts. Obviously the Butterfly is no where as popular as Aspect of the Hare, so I never felt the obligation of filler posts. If I made any attempts at such, I suppose I felt that I was trying too hard to be bigger than I am.

Additionally, there is always the fear factor: The realization of exactly how few (or thousands of) readers you have. Open question posts have the merit of bringing out your readers, but they also have the curse of showing you that they might not exist in the numbers you were hoping for. I made a modest profit on the gambles I took by such posts, and I was quite satisfied with the number of responses they generated. However, I can imagine being equally as terrified by the thought of those posts generating dozens of responses. Having a large reader base brings about so many more obligations, and while I might have been able to handle it when my love for the game was still burning hot, I highly doubt I could meet the demands with any enthusiasm now. I feel guilty for only posting once this month for the small corner of the internet that enjoys(?) my writing - imagine my inner turmoil if the Butterfly had ever been huge.

Yet it is not these sort of posts - the reflective, pensive type - that gain the numbers. Blog hits are totally dependent on the guides. I've made a good solid dozen posts on loot, how-to's, and tips that have made circles around the WoW community, and I've very satisfied with them and the hits they've brought me, yet I'd be a fool to think they made any one stay around. Hopes are best not built around huge spikes made by loot lists. Guides are nice advertisements for the quality of the blog, and they are a ton of fun to do, but they are also deathly boring. Blogs that are solely comprised of guides rarely do well. Blogs need meat for readers to chew on, not simply snacks that readers can grab on the go. Opinions, analysis, open threads, and the occasional random off-topics keep the readers interested and wanting more.

I suppose it is a little presumptuous of me to write about what makes a successful blog work when I have little to show for myself. I can't say I haven't learned a lot by writing and reading WoW blogs over the last two years though, and hopefully these insights may be useful for some budding young bloggers out there. Just call me the Stephen King of WoW Blogs. Rawr!

Connections and Memories

2010-03-01T16:10:00.002-05:00

I've always thought it interesting the way we forge connections in this game. I mentioned last week about a friend leaving WoW. I have no memory of our first meeting beyond, undoubtedly, our first raid together, in which I was terrified about proving myself, and in subsequent years he teased me about pulling aggro on Hydross, but I have no memories of the first time we grew close as friends. I can't believe this isn't normal, though. After all, how many close friends IRL do you recall your first meeting?

However, I do have tons of memories of people I played the game with and since forgotten details about beyond the gratitude I felt for their presence. Soon after we started playing, the Boy and I met another couple that played together, and we formed a friendship with them as we leveled up. They transferred servers one day, and while I tried to keep in touch with them, it eventually fell through. Yet I'll always remember them as our first WoW friends and the ones that showed me that the people on MMOs weren't composed of creepy assholes.

Bad memories have a way of fading, I'm happy to say, but they do exist. I recall the first time I was truly hurt by someone. She had issues herself, and I really can't blame her for them or the troubles that affected her life, but I certainly disliked how she handled our friendship. Back then, my entire world revolved around my guild. I hated PuGing, I saw other guilds as rivals, and to leave my guild meant entering the big, scary world (of Warcraft) alone and friendless. Ignorant and short-sighted? Oh, just a little, and it took me a bit to grow beyond that mindset. The player that hurt me was in our guild, had good relations with our guildees (until she dabbled too far with some of them), then she /gquit one day. I wasn't hurt that she left the guild as much as she never said goodbye to me. She knew I didn't associate with people outside the guild unless I knew them from other servers, and that I didn't like her leaving the guild, but I had accepted it. But not saying good-bye was like a punch in the stomach. Didn't she value our friendship? I never talked with her, nor her with me, again.

To say that I think it's stupid that people have shed tears over this game, myself included, would be a horrible lie. I think it's far from stupid that people are emotionally invested in the game and the people they connect with. I've cried multiple times - both in anger and in sorrow. I cried when Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix finally dropped in Karazhan, after dozens of weeks of running the instance, and the officer that had switched from his hunter to his pally and then back to hit hunter rolled against me for it and won. I cried when I accepted I could no longer raid with my guild, and cried a lot more the night I transferred off to a more progressive guild. I didn't want to lose those friendships I had forged, and the pain is even deeper now that I've come back only to find most of those friendships can never be reestablished. I'm a ghost in my own home.

I've learned so much about how we interact with each other in this game and found many things funny about it. Like how people are always eager to hear about gossip and the funny incidents that happen to you IRL, but shy away from making an investment into your personal self. The anonymity-power of the Internet doesn't stop just because they hear your voice over Vent. You will always be judged by your gear first and your actions second. Silly things that prevent any lasting relationships from forming, unless that rare someone takes the time and effort to look past them and reach out to you. That takes time, I believe, to become. I've certainly become more understanding and benevolent in my "old-age". I gave a random member of our Ulduar10 PuG 500g so he could get his Cold-Weather Flying and actually get inside the instance. Would I have done that four years ago? Probably not.

I found a good group to end my time on WoW with. We laugh, we tease, we work together to down bosses. I'm happy to raid with them, but they will never replace the years of friendships I've earned and lost over the course of my game play, and that's alright. I'm not looking for what I had, and in a sense, I rather envy my friend who left when he did have many of those friendships still lasting. Those connections existed for me, and that's all that matters. I pity anyone who plays this game and didn't find good people to friend and enjoy it with.

You know that sinking feeling in your stomach?

2010-02-24T12:19:00.002-05:00

Well, I felt it when I read this:

Death knights, druids, hunters, mages, rogues, warlocks, warriors, oh my! For those participating in our public testing of the upcoming minor content patch 3.3.3, look out this week for a host of fascinating new adjustments to these classes. Chains of Ice innately does what? Nature's Grasp has how many charges? Vitality boosts stamina by how much? Stay tuned to find out the answer to these and more questions!

Fascinating new adjustments... to the hunter class? Please tell me they don't mean what I fear they mean... Please tell me they aren't reintroducing a whole new class mechanic in the middle of a content patch, just as I'm finishing my time in WoW. Please tell me I'm just over reacting, and I won't have to end my play time before I want to...

Loneliness

2010-02-23T17:10:00.003-05:00

One of my dear friends/guildmates quit WoW today. His life brought up some sudden obligations, and he decided to make the necessary sacrifices. His account time ended, and he uninstalled WoW. We are in contact through Facebook, but I will still miss him greatly in game. It was he who motivated me to transfer back to Kilrogg in the first place, even though he hadn't said a word to me about it - it was just the memories of the years we spent together as guildees and friends that made me decide to end my time on WoW with friends.

He's only been gone one day, but I suddenly feel extremely lonely and friendless. I joined a VoA25 PuG, and as usual, I inspected the other hunters. One outgeared me, was gemming correctly, had a bit of an unusual spec, but I still wondered if I wouldn't beat him. Sure enough, after Koralon, I got whispers from the hunter (and a lock, wondering about Piercing Shots and if they had renamed Chimera Shot...) asking about my DPS. I have no idea how I did or how I compared since I no longer use a damage meter, but it was a nice ego-boost having people inquire about my damage - one I would've shared with my friend. There was nobody on to talk with, and it saddened me greatly.

This is another nail in the coffin, I'm sad to say. Obviously, I have not yet killed the Lich King, so my time on WoW is not over yet, but it is approaching. I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Hunter 2.0 - Level 20

2010-02-22T11:21:00.003-05:00

Nerdette hit lvl 20! Yay!

For my pet, I took Mania's advice, and tamed a beige/glowing blue scorpid from Durotar. In keeping with my 'nerd' theme, I named it bCarboline - after beta-Carboline, the organic amine that causes scorpions to glow blue under UV light.

I also picked up ~~chemistry~~ alchemy as my second profession, with fairly nice results so far, though I am reliant on my baby shaman (38) to herb for me.

I did two instances through the LFG system, Ragefire Chasm and the Deadmines. It was the first time I ever did either instance at level, and it was fun, though a bit frustrating when I had all of two shots available to me. The RFC run was reduced down to me, the bear tank, and a priest healer when we killed the demon boss, and the other two DPS took their look bag and ran. We finished off the quests, and it was fun three-manning the rest of the instance. The Deadmines were particularly interesting since it is a historic Alliance instance, but it was a lot of fun.

Other observations of leveling a hunter four years later:

Regardless of your weapon speed, autoshots take forever when you have no other instant shots available to you.
Getting Multi-shot felt like a breath of fresh air, but it sucked my perception of having a decent mana pool dry.
Hunter's Mark has to be the most useless spell at level ever. I used it on name guys, and that's it.
Talk about a refresher of kiting skills! I have become so pro at the run-stop-autoshot-run kiting scheme now. Also, Wing Clip and Concussive Shots, may I never belittle you again.

Regretfully, I have a lot on my plate lately, along with some drive to level my druid and shaman up some as well, so it might be some time before Nerdette hits 30. She will though!

So...

2010-02-21T11:50:00.002-05:00

By now I wanted to have a post about Nerdette hitting 20, but she's still 17.

I also wanted to have a post about our 10man downing Sindragosa last night, but we never got her past 17%, despite conceding that we needed to bring in a second tank for the last several attempts.

Regrettably, my sinuses have gone on strike, leaving me with a strange fuzzy feeling in my head, driving away most witticisms I had lined up for this post. It also doesn't help that the Boy is going to be gone for the third week in a row this week, dropping my motivation to get any Real Work done like a rock.

I'm afraid you will have to wait for an interesting post. This isn't one.

/crawls off

The World (of Warcraft) I Know

2010-02-16T09:09:00.002-05:00

A fitting summation of the last three expansions. Hope you had a wonderful President's/Darwin/Valentines Day!

Suffer, mortals!

2010-02-14T10:52:00.003-05:00

I'm a lucky individual. I don't kid myself that any skill or riches or divine intervention had any input on my life - I'm just fucking lucky. It makes you appreciate the good parts in life that luck sends your way, certainly, and you don't take for granted when a little more luck comes your way.

I've found a 10 man. They raid at 5 PM server time - 8 PM for me - and ends whenever, usually around midnight for me. They care about raiding, they are interested in pushing content. They can't wait to down the Lich King and start working on hard modes. I think I'm in love. The first night I raided with their 10man group (as opposed to the 25man GDKP they do that I run as well - more about that later), we downed eight bosses. The second night we downed two more, and got another to 17%. I can't say I've been happier since I came back to Kilrogg.

A note on that last boss we worked on: Sindragosa is probably one of the most fun fights I've experienced in a long time. It might even be in hunter's favor that our spells do not trigger Instability and autoshots do not trigger Chilled to the Bone. (I only had four stacks of the debuff three times in probably seven attempts.) We can disengage out of her Icy Grip, though not far enough to be safe or out of melee range (fucking dragon hitbox). Having a min-range does make it difficult to break the Iceblocks, but I ended up meleeing them anyway, just to whittle their health down over the course of Phase 2. We worked on P3 through the trial-and-error system, working on how many stacks of Mystic Buffet should be the limit before we clear it through an iceblocked individual and when to break him out. It was a wonderful experience, and I wouldn't trade it for much.

The group that comprises this 10man were Alliance on a smaller PvP server that decided to xfer over. They have experience and a sense of camaraderie, including a lot of wonderful sarcasm. They started their own GDKP run based on this core, with the intent of pushing content. They are in it for the raiding and not the gold, and I absolutely love them for it. The leader dislikes how the other GDKP runs are placing a minimum bid of 2000g on every epic item in ICC25 (as opposed to the now standard 500g), and so far, our GDKP ICC25 is the only group capable of downing more than the first four bosses. The best part about all of this is that both the 10 and 25man raids start early, letting me raid at normal times while remaining with my friends on Kilrogg.

Life is pretty grand!

Hunter 2.0

2010-02-11T11:48:00.003-05:00

Before I log off of WoW for the last time, I want to relevel Neg. I loved leveling her; it was what I looked forward to the most with both expansions. Sadly, pressure to hit 70/80 usually took all the fun out the experience, and I never got to enjoy the pleasure of questing for experience instead of gold like I wanted to. So, before the hunter class gets a huge overhaul, I want to level the class like I know it.

Obviously, there have been several changes to the class since I leveled it for the first time over four years ago, and I'll never again be able to experience what it was like leveling Neg, but compared to what they are going to do in Cataclysm, I think it'll just have to be close enough. After all, I never had Steady Shot or Aspect of the Viper. I certainly never had the incentive to get gear with Int on it. And Aimed Shot? Yeah, that was a cast.

It goes without saying that I'll be leveling as Marksman. Why change up something I love? However, I won't be leveling as a Tauren. I know, I know - the race is practically in my blood - but I already have four Tauren, and I want to break away from the Family and do something a little more exotic and more appropriate to the class (stupid, stupid racials). Her existence will be outside the storyline of the Highmountain Clan, though I suppose if anything, you could call her Negathle's protege (oooh! potential for a Krunch-Gid type of relationship!) Professions will be Skinning and... I'm honestly not sure yet. The skinning was going to be a given, since I miss the profession on Neg a lot, but I'm not certain about the second prof. She won't be a Miner or an Herbalist, since I absolutely detest having to switch back and forth between two types of Tracking. I already have a Leatherworker, Blacksmith, Jewelcrafter, Enchanter, and Engineer. Alchemist, perhaps? My baby Shaman is an herbalist...

Anyway, without further ado, I give you: Nerdette

They said it couldn't be done

2010-02-11T00:31:00.002-05:00

They said it was impossible.

It could never be realized.

But I have come today to say that the impossible could be realized.

Dreams do come true.

And Neg has leveled an alt to 80.

Okay, okay, so I cheated and rolled a Death Knight. Her entire existence is dedicated to farming, so I don't feel too ashamed about it. Regardless, now that Zinaida is 80, this gives me the excuse I've been waiting for to roll my second hunter! Squee!

Good-bye Greatness!

2010-02-06T20:40:00.002-05:00

No more i200s! It's a wonderful relief to get rid of the year-old trinket, even though I feel a little guilty for going outside the guild to get it. I hate having to call it for my guildees at 11 pm server time because I'm falling asleep at 2 am, so I figured they would appreciate having a 10th that wouldn't cut their time short.

I ran the ICC10 with members of the GDKP community, but that didn't prevent it from being a little frustrating. We ended up calling it on Festergut due to tanks getting one-shot, but I had to fight for hunter's rights to stand still for a fight even before we called it. The same healer that scolded me for trying to down Twins faster couldn't understand why I was advocating one of the two hunters stand as a focal point for the range spore collapse as opposed to the shadow priest. I dunno, perhaps because spriests rely very little on stationary DPS, while hunters gain a considerable amount for it? The lack of bottom-line, basic class mechanic knowledge astounds me.

Fuck me gently with a polearm...

2010-02-02T21:56:00.002-05:00

(Cookie if you get the movie reference.)

So we have some loot from the last boss of Icecrown.

Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger General

Admittedly, this is heroic, and I'll never see it; however, this does not stop me from being faintly aroused at the sight of those stats. Blizzard, looking at this weapon, with a name that does, in fact, label it as a Hunter Weapon, I can almost forgive you for what you are doing to my class and the game next expansion, though this is only because most of the blood has stopped flowing to the brain and instead went in a more southerly direction.

This makes up for the very good but very anticlimactic cutscene.

Personal Max DPS

2010-01-30T13:30:00.003-05:00

It's a snow day, and without much else to accomplish today, I decided to finally sit down and decide what gear will be best for me. I have a couple caveats now that I am no longer a raider, and while this depresses me, it sorta makes life easier. For example, I probably will never see Heroic ICC25. I will only have one real trinket upgrade ever again. I probably will never down Heroic Anub. I can fumble around all I want with my spec and glyphs, but my gear comes with my gold, and it matters now to make educated decisions on what I spend money on. I can't just give it away to another raider that might get a bigger DPS increase.

So with that, I tiptoed over to the handy-dandy online spreadsheet, and plugged in various pieces of gear that are accessible to me. I know to keep both two-piece set bonuses for T9 and T10 to use the exploit (refresh Serpent Sting every time the T10 2-piece procs), though a part of me wonders when basic stats on higher ilvl gear for helm and legs, in addition to the T10 4-piece, will outweigh the DPS increase of the exploit. Nothing is from Heroic ICC, since it is not available yet, and I doubt I'll be able to set foot even into 10man for some time (oh sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, I miss being a raider). Talent wise, I have to keep TSA as a backup, just in case the raid doesn't have the option. I'm willing to move points back and forth from Focused Aim, but ideally I'd like to only have one point in the talent so I can have 3/3 Improved Steady Shot.

I also did one little trick to modify the default shot rotation, besides remove Arcane Shot: I moved Readiness to below Aimed Shot and found a 50 DPS increase on the spreadsheet. This mimics my rotation of Rapid Fire/CotW -> Chimera -> Aimed -> Readiness -> Chimera -> Aimed, etc, popping the next Rapid Fire as soon as the next one is up (assuming I know when Bloodlust is going to occur).

I did four different spreadsheets: Ideal Spec of 1/3 Focused Aim + 3/3 Imp Steady with Mjolnir Runestone, Current Spec of 2/3 Focused Aim + 2/3 Imp Steady with Mjolnirs, Ideal Spec with Whispering Fanged Skull, and Current Spec with Whispering Fanged Skull.

Here are the results for each:
Ideal with Mjolnir: 11642.9
Current with Mjolnir: 11656.33
Ideal with Skull: 11694.32
Current with Skull: 11725.83

All I have to say: Bah. My OCD hates having two talents at 2/3 instead of at least one full talent, but at least this saves me money from respecing. I also had hopes of maintaining an ArPen trinket to keep the soft cap, but it looks like the Skull outweighs Mjolnirs. Fortunately, it is a relatively small DPS loss (~70) if I can't get the Skull, and it is always best to keep in mind what gear you are likely to get as well. So here are my two BiS lists depending on trinkets:

Current with Mjolnir
Helm: Windrunner's Headpeice of Triumph (enchanted with Arcanum of Torment and gemmed with Relentless Earthseige and Deadly Ametrine)
Neck: Wodin's Lucky Necklace (gemmed with Deadly Ametrine)
Shoulder: Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Spaulders (enchanted with Greater Inscription of the Axe and gemmed with Fractured Cardinal Ruby)
Chest: Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Tunic (enchanted with Powerful Stats and gemmed with two Delicate Cardinal Rubies)
Belt: Band of the Night Raven (gemmed with a Glinting Ametrine, Deadly Ametrine, and a Delicate Cardinal Ruby in the belt buckle socket)
Pants: Windrunner's Legguards of Triumph (enchanted with Icescale Leg Armor/Nerubian Leg Reinforcements and gemmed with a Nightmare Tear and Delicate Cardinal Ruby)
Boots: Treads of the Wasteland (enchanted with Superior Agility and gemmed with two Deadly Ametrines)
Bracers: Scourge Hunter's Vambraces (enchanted with Fur Lining - Attack Power and gemmed with two Delicate Cardinal Rubies [one in a blacksmithing socket])
Gloves: Logsplitters (enchanted with Crusher and gemmed with three Delicate Cardinal Rubies [one in a blacksmithing socket])
Ring 1: Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance (gemmed with a Deadly Ametrine)
Ring 2: Frostbrood Sapphire Ring (gemmed with a Delicate Cardinal Ruby)
Trinket 1: Mjolnir Runestone
Trinket 2: Deathbringer's Will
Cloak: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape (enchanted with Major Agility and gemmed with a Delicate Cardinal Ruby)
Stat-stick: Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned (enchanted with Massacre)
Ranged: Zod's Repeating Longbow (enchanted with Heartseeker Scope)
Food: Blackened Dragonfin

Current with Skull
Helm: Windrunner's Headpeice of Triumph (enchanted with Arcanum of Torment and gemmed with Relentless Earthseige and Deadly Ametrine)
Neck: Rimetooth Pendant (gemmed with Glinting Ametrine)
Shoulder: Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Spaulders (enchanted with Greater Inscription of the Axe and gemmed with Fractured Cardinal Ruby)
Chest: Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Tunic (enchanted with Powerful Stats and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Rubies)
Belt: Nerub'ar Stalker Cord (gemmed with a Deadly Ametrine and two Fractured Cardinal Rubies, one in the belt buckle socket)
Pants: Windrunner's Legguards of Triumph (enchanted with Icescale Leg Armor/Nerubian Leg Reinforcements and gemmed with a Nightmare Tear and Fractured Cardinal Ruby)
Boots: Rock-Steady Treads (enchanted with Superior Agility and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Rubies)
Bracers: Scourge Hunter's Vambraces (enchanted with Fur Lining - Attack Power and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Rubies [one in a blacksmithing socket])
Gloves: Logsplitters (enchanted with Crusher and gemmed with three Fractured Cardinal Rubies [one in a blacksmithing socket])
Ring 1: Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance (gemmed with a Deadly Ametrine)
Ring 2: Frostbrood Sapphire Ring (gemmed with a Fractured Cardinal Ruby)
Trinket 1: Whispering Fanged Skull
Trinket 2: Deathbringer's Will
Cloak: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape (enchanted with Major Agility and gemmed with a Fractured Cardinal Ruby)
Stat-stick: Shaft of Glacial Ice (enchanted with Massacre and gemmed with a Deady Ametrine)
Ranged: Zod's Repeating Longbow (enchanted with Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope)
Food: Hearty Rhino

Phew! The most depressing part of the first list is the sheer amount of badges needed. Fortunately, it gives me plenty of time to build up a cache of primordial saronite.

If you are really bored and want to double check my work and/or see any glaring mistakes (because I don't read EJ as much as I should), typos, mislinks, etc. let me know!

OMG MY DPS IS OVER 9000!!1! INVITE!!1!

2010-01-26T11:04:00.002-05:00

It is inevitable that when you are competing with other DPS for raid slots in PUGs, people will post their gear score and some number that they believe resembles their DPS. I've given up fighting this trend, but it still annoys me, particularly when it also has a habit of popping up in my battlegrounds.

Let me outline the features of a good raider, and since I've already done it once, I'll be brief here. Be prepared, be focused and in control of yourself, communicate, be aware of what is going on around you, and do what you are assigned to do. Of all of those things, only one has anything to do with your DPS, and not even fully at that. So you can pull off 8k DPS - good for you! Did you kill the adds you are supposed to? How about moving out of that AoE? Are you talking about an RNG right like Twins or Hodir? Did you move out of the raid when the boss gave you that debuff, or did you just sit there and pew pew? Did the healers have to come to you in order to be in range, or where you just out there doing your own thing?

I understand the love of big numbers, I really do. But since I uninstalled Recount, I just stopped caring. I know I have good DPS, but more importantly, I know I can be trusted to kill adds, move when necessary, support the healers, and do what is necessary to down the boss faster, and that's what every DPS' priority should be. It is tempting to say you can do a metric asston of DPS on Patchwerk, it is more impressive to say that you are raid aware and enjoy killing adds. In the end, that's what down the bosses, even those with hard enrages and are the so-called 'DPS races." For current content, if every DPS in raid can pump out the numbers, but they are incapable of coordinating the boss fight's debuffs or adds, then they will wipe, pure and simple. It is important to be capable of both, and in a sea of people spouting their numbers for generalized fights, it isn't your DPS that will gain you an invite.

The leader of the crossrealm battleground premades likes to talk, and he's also a hunter. This brings on many challanges for me, particularly on the 'staying silent' part. When he started on his DPS and general hunter DPS across the specs, I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. What the hell are you talking about, the MM rotation being more difficult than the SV one? MM you are prioritizing three different instant shots with the same CD, while SV deals with a 6 sec, 10 sec, and 30 second cooldowns on their shots, changing depending on your procs. How is that juggling less? What rogues are you beating and on what fights, exactly? Are you sure the rogues know what they are doing? He prattled on, trying to cover himself and make it out to know what he was doing, so in the end, I just gave up and zoned his voice to the background for following orders in AV. I predict I will have to do this frequently in order to keep my frustration low.

Everything has a strength and a weakness. As a raider, it is important you know what yours are and work to balance them out. Because in the end, your over 9000 dps doesn't mean shit if you are dead due to add.

Come, fly Proudfather Airlines!

2010-01-21T10:06:00.002-05:00

Last night, I was feeling restless. All my alts were slowly earning their money, I had leveled my boomkin up to 63, and there was simply nothing I wanted to do on Neg. I was about to concede defeat, and log off to watch a movie, when trade chat got spammed for cross-server BG premades.

Sometime last week I had joined an EotS as a pugger with this group, and was pleased with the results. I asked for more info, and while I received it, I had a GDKP run in about an hour, so I couldn't take them up on it. Plus, I was nervous. I mean, how many things could go wrong with a bunch of random people (most guys) in vent? But last night I was feeling adventurous, so I logged in their vent.

It was all sorts of awesome. I had heard of cross-realm premades before, and while I knew they all mysteriously queued at the same time, I had never coordinated it myself and so was curious. They were all fairly courteous, and the "piliot" had several years of experience running these groups. When the time to queue came, he spoke quickly and confindently (not unlike a flight attendant) to coordinate the efforts. They had macros galore for each battleground scenario, and every thing was well planned out. They even had means to reduce Vent clutter to communicate if you got into the BG or not. I was wholly impressed.

When we did get into a battleground, it was like war. Everyone had their role and assignment, and they supported each other for the win. It was beautiful. We only lost once, to a server WSG premade. I had a ton of fun, even if waiting on Horde's painfully long queues was a bit tedious.

So, if you are on the US Bloodlust battlegroup, come and fly Proudfather Airlines for some premade PvP. If you love battlegrounds, you won't regret it.

Ninty-five badges down...

2010-01-19T18:32:00.005-05:00

Finally, after squirming into guild ICC10s and braving GDKP ICC25s, I had 95 badges again, and I promptly bought a new chest with the token I stole for a mere 5000g:

Of course, this puts my ArPen in a delicate position. I use Mjolnir Runestone, and I probably will until the day I log off for good (since the odds of me getting Death's Choice and Deathbringer's Will - which I am saving up for, as you can see by the screenshots - are infinitesimally small), so my ArPen soft caps at 735. With the new chest and the ring I can now equip for the hit, this places me at 732. Oy.

Typically I eat ArPen food, over-capping me, but keeping agil as passive as possible. I still have two ArPen gems left, and I'm considering replacing at least one for agil and continuing to eat the ArPen food instead of agility. I suppose the spreadsheets will tell what's best in the end... but I think I don't want to check just out of fear that it is going to suggest going for the agil food instead, and that's a lot of fishing I don't want to do!

I've always said it!

2010-01-16T10:05:00.003-05:00

I was perusing through the headlines at slashdot, when I came across this article about a professor at Stanford who researched into how MMOs build leadership.

My favorite bit:

So if you say, ‘I’m a guild leader, and have been for the last nine months, of a 200-person guild that spans three continents,’ you’ve said, ‘I know how to make a website. I know how to motivate people. I know how to arbitrate a lot of foolishness with respect to who gets what when they do this.’

Now wouldn't it be wonderful, everyday for an hour, you and your officemates raid, or completely own a server's economy, or destroy a few battlegrounds? Conversation at the cooler would be "Damn, son, you totally owned that one Gnome warrior" - "Yeah, he was crunchy. Thanks for the heals" or "Hey, awesome job dealing with those adds yesterday" - "No problem - thanks for the taunt."

Now that's what I call a nice day at work.

In over a hundred games of Wintergrasp...

2010-01-14T21:04:00.004-05:00

I have never seen this:

Horde vehicles: 24
Alliance vehicles: 0

I didn't think that was possible, but apparently it is if this is the first round of defensive (beyond the first round of defense, I believe another workshop automatically turns over).

I so love being on a server that knows how to PvP.

I fail to see the logic, and it makes my head hurt

2010-01-10T10:47:00.005-05:00

One of the reasons I will not play into Cataclysm is the lore. I know, I know, we are going past anything the original Warcraft games have established, which means "new" lore is being made. I've resigned to the fact that concepts that really make no sense at all (like the Tauren sticking with the Horde once Cairne is killed, or Human/Undead hunters, which I greatly lament, and we all know better individuals that would make a better Warchief than Garrosh) are staying around, but I'm solving that issue by not giving Blizzard additional money to support it. Word from around many progressive guilds is that they will not continue into Cataclysm either, since the original lore will be done. However, when the lore fails to make a straight line in the game I'm currently playing, it irritates me nonstop.

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS

Every time I enter Icecrown Citidel I'm reminded that Bolvar Fordragon will be the new Lich King. Remember that awesome cool cut-scene at the Wrathgate, where you got an achievement for watching it? In it some tall, bearded Alliance guy marched up and demands Arthas face them. He's joined by a brown-skinned Orc (Saurfang the Younger, soon to be Saurfang the Deathbringer), who is killed by Arthas, and presumably (unless you can read Draconic), that bearded Alliance guy (Fordragon) died too. Evidently not - the Lich King is still torturing away at him. You know that RP that you have to watch once in the Halls of Reflection, where Uther appears before your faction and says "there must always be a Lich King" and that "a grand sacrifice by a noble soul" must take up that role should Arthas be killed. Now, if that's not transparent, I don't know what is.

I'm okay with Arthas being killed. I don't particularly like it, I think they could have done something really original instead involving the Scourge and the Lich King, but I've accepted it. However, I find it disgustingly convenient that all you have to do to keep the Scourge under control is to kill the Lich King and replace him with another who happens to be on the leash called the Light. I mean, come on. The Lich King is conveniently not plowing over the entirety of Azeroth, despite the fact that is pretty much their only goal in existence - Uther says it's the human side of Arthas that is preventing this from happening; I say that it would considerably more entertaining and realistic if the Lich King were just toying with the races of Azeroth instead. After all, we know Arthas' humanity is gone - you should've been there during the pretty epic quest that established that.

So the Lich King dies. Okay, we now have the issue of the Scourge running rampant over Azeroth. That's a bad thing from our point of view, but I would venture to say that's not exactly a bad thing for the Scourge. In fact, I'm fairly sure that's all they really want to do. Uther says it's not happening because a non-existent part of Arthas is preventing it; I say it's not happening because it amuses Arthas to let us think we have a chance. He knows that if he dies, he still wins. Our ace in the hole is supposedly the ability to replace him with someone that won't let the Scourge annihilate everything. And we are supposed to believe that the same strength/soul that is preventing Fordragon from succumbing to his current torture is going to act the same as Arthas' current non-existant humanity, and keep a reign on the Scourge. Ew? How do we know that strength isn't going to be corrupted? Sure, he wasn't completely smitten by power when he was the regent of Stormwind, but he did allow a certain lady dragon whisper into his ear and sway his decisions. He's supposedly better than that now, with the entirety of the Scourge under his will? Doesn't it make sense that by rising him as the Lich King, it would be deja vu all over again? Fight Arthas, kill Arthas, fight Bolvar, kill Bolvar, fight...? Are we really expected to accept that we would have trust in a new Lich King? Of course, we have no idea the details to what happens next, but I feel that something equally as cheesy will be in store. But I hope I'm wrong.

Finally, it really irritates me that a Human has more inner strength than an Orc. Both are good people, neither fell prey to the influences of the Legion/Scourge, but it was the Orc that succumbed to the Lich King, not the Human. Wasn't this supposed to be a game about how both sides have their "humanity", dreams, ambitions, love, etc? Yet all through Wrath and into Cataclysm, that concept is falling apart, and the Horde are not staying on the high ground. Will there be no Hero of the Horde that will save the world, Alliance included?

The fact that I restrained myself proves I'm not completely jaded

2010-01-08T09:57:00.002-05:00

Story time!

My random daily dungeon yesterday was Oculus. As I mentioned, I am no longer hesitant to join the dungeon any more for fear of somebody dropping in the first five seconds, so I plunged right in and started making conversation, most notably on how ugly the DK's tank shoulders were. When the first boss went down, and the drakes became available, I said, "One of each color," to nix any ideas of wanting to do the void achievements.

The reply was "I think we all know how to do Oculus. Thanks."

Orly?

It was then that I noticed the other four members of the group were from the same server and the same guild, so I stepped back out of the leader role that the LFG system had assigned me and just left things on autopilot. But, I gotta say, if they all knew how to do Oculus, then they have the worst short-term memories I have ever encountered.

Two of them kept getting lost. Hardcore-lost, like not knowing whether to go up or down. It's forgivable - after all, unlike every other instance, you are not staying on the same dimensional plane. But not knowing how to get from boss to boss is sorta a indication that you aren't quite as familiar with the instance as your guildee has lead me to believe.

The healer didn't know to move out of the 120 degree array on the second boss, which wasn't a particular issue, but it did add unnecessary healing, particularly when we still had a drake they failed to kill still on us.

Finally, the other bronze drake obviously had never been on a bronze drake before. Sensing this, I offered to take the first timestop and the first channel. When my channel was completed and hers never started, I just kept channeling. When her turn to timestop came up and he stayed enraged for the entirety of the duration despite my urge to timestop, I facepalmed a little. But she did timestop on the third one, right alone with me!

Moral of the story, kids: Don't speak for your entire party when you are not aware they do not know how to do Oculus. Thanks.

I didn't say anything about the obvious fact that they didn't know how to do Oculus. I stayed silent, though the thoughts where there. I know I've become very jaded, very irritable, and just a little bitchy about the game, and for that I apologize. But while that side of me is being channeled through this blog, I've been good about it not showing to strangers ingame.

Guildees that do not use punctuation marks properly are still fair game.

I lol'd

2010-01-05T10:23:00.003-05:00

To encourage players not to shy away from the many invigorating adventures to be had in The Oculus, we have applied a change to enhance the rewards players are provided when selected for this dungeon via the Random Heroic option in the Dungeon Finder. Once Ley-Guardian Eregos is defeated, one loot bag per character will be provided in his chest in addition to the current rewards. Each loot bag will offer players rare gems, two additional Emblems of Triumph, and a chance of being rewarded the Reins of the Blue Drake. These fine treasures could be yours should you honor your fellow party members by besting the challenges contained within The Oculus! Keep in mind, however, that these extra loot bags will only be awarded to each party member if Oculus is selected by the Dungeon Finder when players choose the Random Heroic option.

In light of this change, the Reins of the Azure Drake will now have a chance of dropping in both 10- and 25-player versions of The Eye of Eternity.

I never bailed on an Oculus before, but now I won't groan as much if the loading screen pops up. It is rather sad now much the instance has been nerfed along with all the other incentives they have to add to it in order to make it appealing. Really, it's a fun encounter, it just needs some design tweaks.

I asked our code quru what the logarithm looked like for determining the "random" dungeon, and he said that the instance you get depends on your gear level. Now, without delving further in (which is bad, but I'm in a rush today), I'd guess that the system looks at your gear and determined from the iLevel where you will get upgrades/be a little challenged. That's all well and good, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it plateaus around i200, which would explain that the only three instances I ever get are H:Halls of Stone, H:Oculus, and H:Halls of Lightning. Wouldn't a considerable improvement on this system have a next level of iLevel, where if your gear is above, say, i232, the dungeon you get is truly random? Or is this hypothesis completely wrong?

Anyway, good luck with the next wing of Icecrown! Hopefully our GDKP runs will be able to venture past Saurfang within a reasonable amount of time!

Looking out for Number One (again)

2010-01-03T20:08:00.002-05:00

Probably my greatest annoyance with PuG raiding is the dominance of individual interest. Thankfully, it doesn't apply too much for the boss fights, where most people are more interested in completing the encounter than showing off on the meters. Too much, being the key words there. There are always people damaging the boss when they should be focusing on the spikes/acolytes/blood beasts, but for the most part, it isn't a problem. The raiders work together until the loot is announced, then it's every gold monger for themselves.

I think it is a combition of being on a loot council with my later requirement being able to min/max gear. I'm all too aware of what peices will be maximized for what class, and the stat priorities for each slot, so it frustrates me to see every class capable of wearing an item bidding on it. No care for main spec or raid role, no concern for mains over alts. If you have the gold, that staff five iLevels above your current one is all yours and that other guy stuck with a 213 will just have to wait a little longer for a lucky night. Rarely, just rarely, you'll see people stop bidding when they notice another guy needs the item more, but it is infrequent.

And they can hardly be blamed. Why be concerned about the needs of puggers? Yes, they are on server and a frequent participant of these GDKP runs, but they have the exact same opportunities as you do (legally, at least) to get the gold needed to bid. If they can't make it, then they need to find an actual guild run instead. If you are in a guild and meeting the requirements as a raider, then you can get loot by the consideration of others. If you are not, you get loot with your gold - everything else is void.

I don't like compromising my values, but if I want to raid on my server, I don't have much choice. Deathbringer's Will sold for 23500g last night (I made an honest bid of 8000g, all I had on me), and I had to look away in order to prevent massive flustering at the rogue names popping up on the screen as they bid. Since I lost, I bid instead on a tier token and won with 5000g - a total steal (the other one in the chest went for over 10k). It will go to my non-existant chest, since right now I only have around 20 Frost Emblems. Would I approve of this if it had been a guild run? Hell no. You get the tier token if you have the badges, and if nobody does, then it goes to the classes/raiders that earned it. But I have to take these opportunities as they come if I want to get gear. And, yes, I do hate myself a little for it. But I want to raid, dammit.

Just like when I raided with a progressive guild, I had to let my values of individual characterization die - now I have to let my values of team betterment die and become selfish again. It sucks.

Assholes Abound

2009-12-31T10:21:00.003-05:00

Now, I've played this game for a long time. I recall when the AQ event happened, and feeling at a loss for how I can recover my beloved Feralas. I remember what it was like to see a member of the Top Guild, inspect their shinies, and vow I'll be like them some day. I spent a lot of time in cities, rolling my eyes at the meaningless babble. Remember when the global LFG channel was implemented? Scary times, man. But in all those years, I have no memory of the amount of assholeness that I see today.

It's possible it's just me, but have the big, progressive guilds sudden taken a turn for the pricks? The guild in topic has been on server since Day 1, and I've had friends in and out of the guild. They suffered a rough split in early BC, but the group of people as a whole have just been honest, proud raiders. There would always be a jokester member, some who hang out in trade, but they rarely uttered a demeaning word such as "scrub". They had huge egos, to be sure, but they weren't used as a weapon. Yesterday a "discussion" was going on about whether a 500g fee for crafting some ICC patterns was honest. The seller informed on of his accusers that he did not need the opinion of a "scrub hunter." Really? I mean, wouldn't "idiot" equally suffice? "Uneducated imbecile"? "Fool"? Why do you have belittle both his class and his guild membership? When I /who'd the seller, found out he was in the Top Guild, I bemoaned how the mighty have fallen.

I've done my fair share of name calling, don't get me wrong. I've flustered over how the "casual" members of Guild Y managed to down a boss before us. But I've never referred to anyone as a "bad" outside of my guild. I'll specifically trash talk people who are on the same level as me in terms of game play and experience, not people who don't know how to pull pyrite when riding shotgun in a demolisher.

So why have the assholes multiplied? I'm going to make an unresearched correlation and blame the new raid system. Normal vs Heroic. Easy vs Hard. All the loot looks the same, they all have the basic level stats. You couldn't tell the difference at first glance between raider of Guild A and raider of Guild M. Are raiders a bit frustrated by this? I think so. There is considerable more pressure now to prove you are not a bad player, that your iLevel gear was earned with hard work and diligence and not just through a random PUG found in Trade; that you have been playing this class as your main for years, not just as an alt, casually earning your tier through badge runs. And so the inevitable happens when a group of males must prove their manliness when nothing else distinguishes them: They talk shit, and their guild's reputation suffers.

Like I said, it might just be me. I'm in a new position, where I no longer have an assured raid spot. I have to PUG my way through the weekly raid quest. I have to compete for a GDKP raid poisition with alts from the Top Guilds, with friends of the leaders, and with people that buy gold. The world is a bit scarier place for me now, and keeping my eyes open is vital if I want to inch my way through progress.

Of course, this comes from a bad day back. My first two attempts at completing the Random Daily Heroic failed due to Brann bugging out (yes, another HoS...) and people immediately leaving if they find the random heroic happens to be Oculus. The second attempt at Oculus was successful, thankfully. I tried to get into a group for Ulduar 10 to down Razorscale, but I was totally ignored, even after the leader specifically said "need a warrior, mage, or pally dps." Really? This is Ulduar 10, to Razorscale - what can a mage do that I cannot? And are you really concerned that I will be taking gear from another hunter? I just linked Glory of the Ulduar Raider to prove to you I know what I'm doing - I don't think I'll be needing gear. Then came the slew of embarressing WSG defeats, followed by a duo of equally as embarressing WG failures. The Horde has so much promise; why do they have to be so single minded?

The only highlight of my day came when I saved a boomkin from a human pally in between Wintergrasp battles. It was by total chance - I had just sniped a draenei hunter with about 5% mana, and I was flying down to drink up when they appeared in front of me. The boomkin thanked me, and we parted ways. I was doing some fishing before the battle when I got a tell saying that I was an ass for interrupting their little duel and that hunters are always butting in where they don't belong. I asked him how long he'd known of the concept of world PvP and if he considers rape just casual sex, too. Moral of the story, kids: World PvP means that anyone can enter your little "duel".

The End?

2009-12-29T17:17:00.003-05:00

I hope you all had a productive holiday week. I certainly did. Plans were made for the wedding, a copious amount of fatty foods were consumed, annoying family members were endured and/or avoided, and the Boy and I learned a lot about what it means to leave your newly established home for a week.

And in all that time, I haven't had the hungering pains for WoW. I had a small stab of guilt for not updating the Butterfly, but that accompanied the frustration of not having much to post about. A small part of me says "quit now, while you still recognize how easy it is to walk away!" but another part of me says "do you really have something better to do?" I do still want to down Arthas, and make at least 50,000 kills, but they are goals that are very casual and not exactly time sensitive. I feel that my lack of drive is a good thing; this addiction has burnt itself out.

Despite the Boy's warnings that I should get a backup game for the inevitable rebound, I feel like my gaming drive is just dying out in general, like a childhood habit. This has good and bad components. On the good, it means I can devote all the necessary energy to school, research, and home. On the bad, it severs one of the ties that brought the Boy and I together in the first place and ensured our relationship would last through our time apart. Yet I think he will be able to relate - after all, he announced a couple weeks ago that he was growing tired of beer, and I rushed to check if he was feverish. Something tells me, however, that just a good solid break from a gaming console will be a good fast to set me up for another go for another game, should I feel the call again.

This isn't the end, not yet. You'll know when I'm gone for good ;)

Happy Holidays from The Angry Butterfly!

2009-12-21T10:30:00.000-05:00

Today is the Winter's Solstice, the shortest day of the year, which means the days will only get longer from here until July 21st. This is the reason for the holiday season, so celebrate by eating a lot of fattening foods, staying warm by the fire, and catching up with friends and family.

This is also the time for giving to those less fortunate and in need of assistance. I encourage you to donate time, money, or other goods to a charity of any sort (I highly recommend any on this list - and that does include Child's Play). Donations can extend to WoW as well, where you can extend a hand to those poor noobs out there by teaching them and providing them with basic goods instead of one-shotting them (I know, it's difficult not to).

I will be venturing back to the Midwest this week, to sate the hungering family and plan a wedding (ugh). I won't be on much, but I'm sure I'll still try to snag a present under Grandfather Winter's tree sometime!

Snowed In

2009-12-19T14:59:00.004-05:00

Evidently D.C. and Virginia have declared the current weather emergency-worthy. I'm not gonna lie, it's a lot of snow, but after living in Chicago for four years, I have definitely seen worse. Regardless, the Boy and I are trapped in our apartment for the weekend, and that's not a terrible thing.

WoW has taken a lower priority as the weeks wind down towards the holidays. We are flying back home to Kansas on the 21st (the solstice!) for a week, and I want to return to a clean house. I've been busy cleaning and organizing, which doesn't leave much time for anything besides the daily heroic and battleground, maybe a Wintergrasp or two. My funds are woefully low for this week's GDKP run, so I most likely won't be able to afford anything, and I haven't had time to grind honor to buy gems as a source of income.

I did join a 2s team with a Holy Pally, and we hit 1600 this week - not bad considering we are just goofing off. With the plethora of melee teams we've been encountering, I've finally conceded to going SV for my PvP spec. I've never PvP'd as SV, and while I find it more intuitive and easier to control people with, I find it more difficult to survive in battlegrounds, ironically enough. The double-Deterrence MM offered with Readiness made flag carrying a breeze, while I just don't have the same means of short-term survival with SV.

And with that, I leave you with a WoW Carol:

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
but my Toshiba Qosmio is delightful,
and since the cables out on the tubes,
time to pwn noobs, pwn noobs, pwn noobs.

Dear Blizzard

2009-12-15T17:44:00.002-05:00

Every time I get Heroic Halls of Lightning or Heroic Halls of Stone through the random dungeon finder, I will kill a kitten, as all wrathful goddesses are prone to do. It is on you to prevent these needless slaughter.

Love,
Neg

I spent waaaaay too much on gear today

2009-12-13T22:21:00.004-05:00

I can't say I haven't had much to spend my gold on lately. Since all I've been doing is PvPing, I don't get gear upgrades nor have to repair much, and arrows last forever when autoshots don't have time to fly between members of the Alliance. I tentatively have been saving up for epic flying on a couple of alts, but all in all, just hording for a rainy day. Ironically, it rained the majority of the day in Northern Virginia.

Around 10 AM server time, someone in trade started a bid war on a Battered Hilt. Now, unless you have Heroic Hellion Glaive, a MM hunter looks at that very hungrily. Right now, I have 102 stat points wasted on haste, and I would like to get rid of that. So I started bidding, and luckily enough, the seller is in a rush, and I won for 8500g. The poor sap easily lost 1.5k or more, but business is business. Tomorrow I'll have a Quel'Delar to match the Boy's old Quel'Serrar. Even though I loose around 50ish AP, that 99 crit is worth it.

Tonight I hopped in another GDKP run, and while there were some bumps through ToC25 (more on that later), we followed with the pug's first foray into ICC25. We one shotted Morrowgar, then spent the rest of the time on Deathwhisper, and my it was a hunter's night. Morrowgar dropped the hit helm, and Deathwhisper dropped the ArPen pants. I was a bit poorer that afternoon than I was earlier, but I topped the bid with 5.5k, and won. We earned more with two bosses in ICC25 than on all five bosses in ToC25.

The questline for Quel'Delar is fun, and I won't spoil it for you. You do get to venture into the other faction's side of Dalaran, which means I finally got to explore the beer garden:

Tonight's GDKP run of ToC25 hit a stressful note when we hit Twin Valks. Last time I mentioned that their strat is to put all the melee on black and all the ranged on white. Well, this strat is easy enough to explain, but not exactly optimal on damage, mainly because a class of great dps is severly gimped: The hunters. So I said in raid "I'm going to go white with the melee", took the white attunment (watched the other hunter do the same), and we stood together on one side. About halfway in, the raid leaders noticed we were white, and while I said we were fine (and we were), they were not happy.

Once the bosses were down (in less than three minutes), one of the leaders asked me why I was the "wrong" attunement, and I explained: By keeping the hunter's on the caster target, you are severely gimping the overall DPS of the raid. I tried to explain it wasn't a matter of not getting to do "leet dps" or being purposely annoying - having hunters dps a target that have the appropriate debuffs makes the fight shorter. She tried to say that having multiple attunements in the range made it more stressful for the healers, but I pointed out that we would only get splash damage (neither of us hit an orb) and by having more dps, the fight would be shorter and the healers would heal less. Obviously I was in the wrong for not doing what the raid leader said, but it was not maliciously - it was to better the raid. It was smoothed over, but I'm debating whether or not I want to do the fight with them again, or discuss the strat with the leaders. It's just silly.

Anyway, we are going to finish the ICC25 tomorrow, and I am quite eager :3

Updated!

2009-12-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

Raiding Hunter Loot in 3.3 has been updated with all the new loot (sans Arthas, of course) along with my thoughts.

Good luck in Icecrown!

Get the info out

2009-12-11T09:41:00.002-05:00

In my brief life in a hard core raiding guild, there was a lot of fuss about managing who got certain gear first. Since the goal was to down content as quickly as possible, each item of gear was given out with the mentality that it would go to a class/spec that offered the maximum amount of efficiency for the item (hence, I got Hellion Glaive on our first Anub'arak kill - oh look! My picture is on wowhead!).

I strongly encourage you to repost Rilgon's analysis of the new trinket from ICC25, Deathbringer's Will, on your guild's forums for discussion among the physical classes. Let them know what proc they are getting, and how much the proc will benefit them with gear from Icecrown.

Reflections on the new LFG system

2009-12-10T09:57:00.003-05:00

I spent yesterday in a queue, and I'm not complaining. I tested out the new LFG system on the PTR a month or so ago, when the old GM couldn't stop singing it's praises, and I had to admit it was great all around. I instantly plotted my goal to finish off 1000 Stone Keeper Shards and then get the subsequent achievements for the new system.

I logged in, queued up, and got H:Halls of Reflection. Then H:Pit of Sauron. Then H:Halls of Stone. Then H:Drak'tharon Keep. At that point, Wintergrasp had started, so I went over to deal with that, but we lost since the graveyard spirit rezzers were a bit biased and refused to rez us, resulting in everyone in the workshop graveyards having to run to the Horde emcampment. So while WG was down, I did a random normal instance, and got Halls of Reflection. I had no intention of just doing a slew of normal instances, so I did the PvP daily (25 arena points = awesome), and even jumped into a 10 man Eye of Eternity to do the weekly raid. Once Horde won the Wintergrasp again, I ran H:Halls of Lightning, then another H:Halls of Stone, followed by another H:Halls of Reflection (methinks computer random is at work here), and then finally a H:Culling of Stratholm, where I completed my 1000 Stone Keeper Shards.

I had good fortune with the puggers as well - except in the Halls of Lightning, where the main tank was chatting more than he was pulling, then told me off for pulling for him. Chatter was rare, but if it was, it was mainly concerned with topics clearly covered in the patch notes, and I grew increasingly more impatient with people who were surprised that the 5mans were dropping Emblems of Triumph.

Dealing with other servers loot rules was an unforeseen surprise - afterall, how often do you think about other server's codes of conduct? We started labeling servers for how they roll on Frozen Orbs - the PvP servers nearly always Need, the PvE servers nearly always Greed, and the RP servers are a toss-up. It took me awhile to get used to the new Disenchanting system as well, only because if no enchanter was in the group, everyone just started Greeding the BoP blues and epics. This makes sense of course, I just wasn't ready for the sudden lack of "no enchanter in group? guess we can just roll for vendor."

I only grouped up once with someone from a Big Name Guild, and that was a ret pally from CUTIES ONLY in my first Halls of Stone. I enjoyed it - he was silent, but did all the work on the Brann event, and all I had to do was drop traps.

Now that I am one day in, I don't think I have any reservations about the new system. I haven't had the chance to use the "Vote to Kick" option yet, and I hope I don't have to, nor have we really carried any new-80 in blues and greens either. I'm 22 of the 50 away from a new chuckle-worthy title. What I am rather pleased about is that once the novelty of the system wears off, and all the titles are gained and badges farmed, it won't be nearly as painful to pick it back up again.

Raiding Hunter Loot in 3.3

2009-12-07T21:26:00.014-05:00

So here we are, the last content patch of the expansion. I'm slightly depressed that after all this time, the vast majority of the loot I'll be outlining here won't be available to me, but I can seek solace in the fact that others who will use this list will get the gear and use it well. I am happy that they are bringing back a faction to get rep with, along with a dungeon with many many bosses. I enjoy such instances, because they make me nostalgic for the raids of old. Hopefully I can get some raids in to see the content before I call it quits.

Fortunately, this time the annoying Horde- and Alliance-only names are left behind with the Argent Tournament. Normal and Hard Mode loot still exists, but it won't be as painful to list them out.

Tier pieces work in a similar way again, with three levels: 251, 264, and 277. Ilvl 251 can be bought with Emblem of Frost (the new Emblem of Triumph - just like the last patch, every instance except Icecrown 10/25 now drops Triumph, and everything new drops Frost) - 60 for the shoulders and gloves, 95 for the helm, chest, and pants. Ilvl 264 requires the 251 piece plus a tier token from Normal; ilvl 277 requires the 264 piece plus a heroic tier token from Hark Mode. As of right now, it is still unknown where the tokens drop.

As of the patch release, not all the loot is known (what with Arthas not being tested and all), so these will be updated as the instance progresses. For the most part, I will not be listing loot from the 5-man dungeons. However, some items (such as stat-sticks and trinkets) are notoriously difficult to have drop and/or win in some raids, so some upgrades may exist in the new 5-mans.

"Neg's Notes" are my eyeballing estimate of what is the best of the gear. I don't plug anything in to the spreadsheets, so I may very well be wrong with what is the optimal piece, but I'm fairly certain I'll be in the ballpark ;)

Helm
Taldron's Short-Sighted Helm - Normal/Hard Mode - Rotface 10
Snowserpent Mail Helm - Normal/Hard Mode - Lord Marrowgar 25
Tier 10/10.25/10.5

Neg's Notes: All three are acceptable, but since 4-piece tier is priority, gonna have to go with t10.25. Snowserpent is a nice alternative for a hit piece, which hopefully you won't need.

Neck
Precious' Putrid Collar - Normal/Hard Mode - Festergut 10
Rimetooth Pendant - Normal/Hard Mode - Sindragosa 10
Wodin's Lucky Necklace - Normal/Hard Mode - Trash 25 (Stinky and Precious?)
Sindragosa's Cruel Claw - Normal/Hard Mode - Singdragosa 25

Neg's Notes: Rimetooth Pendant is where it's at, with Wodin's Lucky Necklace as a hit alternative.

Shoulder
Pauldrons of Lost Hope - Normal/Hard Mode - Gunship Armory 10
Shoulderpads of the Morbid Ritual - Normal/Hard Mode - Professor Putricide 10
Dual-Bladed Pauldrons - Normal/Hard Mode - Rotface 25
Tier 10/10.25/10.5

Neg's Notes: Tier wins with no haste.

Cloak
Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape - 50 Emblems of Frost
Shadowvault Slayer's Cloak - Normal/Hard Mode - Gunship Armory 25

Neg's Notes: Arthas better have a better piece of cloth up his sleeve, since there is nothing dropping for hunters at the moment. Save up your Frost Emblems, and make that cloak one of your first purchases for an easy upgrade if you never got chest loot in ToC10/25.

Chest
Longstrider's Vest - 95 Emblems of Frost
Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts - Normal/Hard Mode - Deathbringer Saurfang 10
Carapace of Forgotten Kings - Normal/Hard Mode - Festergut 25
Tier 10/10.25/10.5

Neg's Notes: This is tough to eyeball (sans the wowhead comparative loot table), but I'm just going to call tier for this as well, since I don't doubt that the set bonuses will outweigh any stats on better chests.

Bracers
Icecrown Rampart Bracers - Normal/Hard Mode - Gunship Armory 10
Scourge Hunter's Vambraces - Normal/Hard Mode - Gunship Armory 25

Neg's Notes: This one will depend on your hit and ArPen. The 10man hit bracers also have a nice little chunk of more AP.

Gloves
Logsplitters - 60 Emblems of Frost
Handgrips of Frost and Steel - Normal/Hard Mode - Lady Deathwhisper 10
Anub'ar Stalker's Gloves - Normal/Hard Mode - Valithria Dreamwalker 25
Tier 10/10.25/10.5

Neg's Notes: Well, here's a nice batch of guarenteed hit, so go with tier - though, those two red sockets on the 10man gloves are tempting...

Belt
Band of the Night Raven - 60 Emblems of Frost
Linked Scourge Vertebrae - Normal/Hard Mode - Lord Marrowgar 10
Blood-Drinket's Girdle - Normal/Hard Mode - Blood Prince Council 10
Nerub'ar Stalker's Cord - Normal/Hard Mode - Festergut 25

Neg's Notes: Once again, depending on your hit and ArPen, either the Festergut 25 or the badge belt are good - just stay away from the BPC10 one (ew, haste). I'm actually going to weigh in favor of the badge belt over the heroic Marrowgar10 piece as welll; the stats are identical, except for the sockets. The Marrowgar10 will be better if you don't have a better place to put your Nightmare's Tier, but if you do, those two yellow sockets in the badge belt are more welcoming than the blue and red.

Pants
Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards - Leatherworking made
Legguards of the Twisted Dream - Normal/Hard Mode - Valithria Dreamwalker 10
Leggings of Northern Lights - Normal/Hard Mode - Lady Deathwhisper 25
Tier 10/10.25/10.5

Neg's Notes: No competition here - Deathwhisper25 pants all the way. The LW pants are different by the normal version by a matter of 16 AP vs 8 Agil - and when the iValues are balanced, I still weigh in favor of Agil.

Boots
Rock-Steady Treads - Leatherworking made
Wyrmwing Treads - Normal/Hard Mode - Sindragosa 10
Taldron's Long Neglected Boots - Normal/Hard Mode - Festergut 10
Treads of the Wasteland - Normal/Hard Mode - Blood Prince Council 25

Neg's Notes: Once again, it depends on your hit and ArPen and what you can get vs what you need. Go for the BPC25 boots over the Sindragosa10, and both the Festergut10 and the LW made are good, just depends on your ArPen balance (though the LW sockets are fairly annoying).

Rings
Saurfang's Cold-Forged Band - Normal/Hard Mode - Deathbringer Saurfang 10
Seal of the Twilight Queen - Normal/Hard Mode - Queen Lana'thel 10
Band of the Bone Colossus - Normal/Hard Mode - Lord Marrowgar 25
Frostbrood Sapphire Ring - Normal/Hard Mode - Valithria Dreamwalker 25
Ashen Band of Vengeance/Greater Vengeance/Unmatched Vengeance/Endless Vengeance - Increasing rep with the Ashen verdict from Ormus the Penitent

Neg's Notes: I'm going to make a sweeping generalization that every ring with haste is bad, which leaves the Valithria25 ring and the rep ring. There, that was easy.

Trinkets
Herkuml War Token - 60 Emblems of Frost
Needle-Encrusted Scorpion - Devourer of Souls, Heroic Forge of Souls 5
Whispering Fanged Skull - Normal/ Hard Mode - Lady Deathwhisper 10
Deathbringer's Will - Normal/Hard Mode - Deathbringer Saurfang 25

Neg's Notes: Badge trinket bad, NES not as good as Mjolners/Grim Toll (10% proc on crits vs 15% proc on hits), the Fanged Skull is meh, and the Deathbringer's Will is awesome (for hunters). The spreadsheets will tell what combos will be at the top, and your luck will determine if you want to stay with the ArPen-procing trinket or reach the ArPen cap through gear/gems.

Stat Sticks
Orca-Hunter's Harpoon - Marwyn, Heroic Halls of Reflection 5
Quel'delar, Ferocity of the Scorned - Quest reward started from the Battered Hilt, a drop from any of the heroic new 5mans.
Hersir's Greatspear - Normal/Hard Mode - Blood Prince Council 10
Shaft of Glacial Ice - Normal/Hard Mode - Rotface 10
Bloodfall - Normal/Hard Mode - Bloog-Queen Lana'thel 25
Distant Land - Normal/Hard Mode - Festergut 25
Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General - Normal/Hard Mode - The Lich King 25

Neg's Notes: We now have a stat-stick that does, indeed, say "Hunter Weapon". I'm also fairly positive that when you loot Oathbinder and equip it, a chorus of naked men/women (depending on your sexual orientation) will decend from the heavens in glorious trumpting for your disposal.

Range
Njordnar Bone Bow - Normal/Hard Mode - Lady Deathwhisper 10
Stakethrower - Normal/Hard Mode - Blood-Queen Lana'thel 10
Zod's Repeating Longbow - Normal/Hard Mode - Lady Deathwhisper 25
Windrunner's Heartskeer - Normal/Hard Mode - The Lich King 10
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas - Normal/Hard Mode - The Lich King 25

Neg's Notes: Well it's obvious now, what with the Lich King loot out. Too bad the best of the lot has haste (and is a bloody xbow...), but the second best of the lot is actually very pretty.

I would say they definitely got it right for loot this instance. Everything has a secondary option than you can balace with your other gear, though it does mean you will be accumulating a lot of gear to enchant and coordinate.

Once again, tell me if I missed something or my rational is screwy.

Have fun in Icecrown!

Every which way

2009-12-05T14:09:00.002-05:00

It's our first snow day here in Virginia, and I'm aching for something to do. Which is slightly ironic, because I want to do everything. I have an urge to do everything that I've had on my mind for ages, but I feel like starting one will somehow betray the others, so doing nothing seems like the safest alternative. But I wanna do something!

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Animorphs series. It got me hooked in the second grade when one of the main characters shared my legal name. Now that I'm grown and more knowledgeable about such things - even if it was possible, the animals the kids turned into would have to somehow reflect their biological age instead of the full adult animals they always turned into - I still get the urge to reread the series, as redundant as they were towards the end. I even had a dream last night about having to infiltrate a top secret enemy underwater compound, and I had to morph into a fish to do it, but had to get past the keeper first.

Now that I'm no longer raiding, all my old hobbies are resurfacing. I used to write - a lot. I know most readers are familiar with my RP writing, but the stuff I used to write would keep me up until the wee hours of the morning in dedication. I had a book I was working on in high school, and while I still skim through it from time to time, I more or less abandoned it when WoW came along. Now that urge to work on it is resurfacing, helped along by reading Pike's little writing adventure, and I can't think of a better time to start back on it than when the world is covered in white, and I'm snug indoors.

However, my new little goal in WoW is to get Battlemaster, and that means a lot of PvP. I typically do the weekend battleground, but I pop in from time to time in others just to shake up the monotony. I only have one Veteran, so I have many games to do in the other BGs. I almost have the Wintergrasp meta, so I frequently jump into those games when the time comes. One guy shared quests, including one that confused me. It was a quest to go into AV and kill a named NPC. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't find him in wowhead. Then it hit me: It was an old quest from vanilla, before they did the complete overhaul of Alterac Valley. The guy that shared the quest had it in his log for over two years, and now it was mine, like a sad little virus that you could never satisfy. I should just delete it, but it brings back happy memories of the way AV used to be, with the mini-goals, the support troops, the summoned gods, and the 1-, 2-, 6-, 12-, 24-, 48-hour games. I think I'll just keep it.

What I should really do is clean house, since the boy is away at some military function. I'll think about that one.

GDKP'd

2009-12-01T13:45:00.003-05:00

Since I can no longer raid with my guild, I'm happy to have an excuse to pug a 10 or 25 man from time to time. Of course, it's also tough to get into a run that won't take me past midnight, as well, so if I can get into a scheduled raid, I'm happy to.

On my server, a group does three GDKP runs a week, and the one I partake is at 2:30 PST (so 5:30 my time). If you are as unfamiliar with the concept of GDKP as I was, it goes something like this: If you want an item of loot from a boss, you place a bid of gold. In our case, everything (except Crusader Orbs) starts at a 500g bid, and each increasing bid must be 50g or more. People have five seconds from the last bid to place the next one until a top bidder wins. The gold is paid to the master looter, and at the end of the night, the total gold of all items sold is then divided up equally among the raiders. For really good nights of weapons and trinkets, the payout can be around 5000g; for a poor night, it might be 1500g or less. My first run was 1950g, and I loved it.

There is only one thing I need out of normal ToC25 now, and that is the highest bid item, so I essentially see this as me helping out 24 other people that need gear, and getting paid for doing something I love. Win-win all around.

It was strange doing new strats for old fights. I'm so partial to our Twins strategy, and then approaching the fight in a very simple way was sorta disheartening, not to meantion DPS-draining. (They had all range black-attuned and all melee white-attuned, meaning I only had a 1/3 of the debuffs I needed on the boss, and mana sucked kodo testicles. Next time, I'm stealing the melee's white orbs.) Doing Anub the safe-safe-safe way meant there were so many frost patches down, it looked like it was week one of the encounter. It was amusing, if bittersweet. However, the strangest thing was at the end, when everyone lined up nice and straight to get the pay-out:

It's like we're British, or something!

Doing only normal-modes does make me realize how much I'm starting to miss the challanges of hard-modes. I might coerce the Boy into letting me stay up late this weekend for a 10 man. Shhhh....

What you miss

2009-11-28T19:36:00.002-05:00

It's a strange experience leaving one's home server for several months only to return again. It was like I was sent away to Raiding Military School, drilled in the basics, then sent home once I did my time. While I welcome the return to old habits bred from freedom of choice, I also miss the habits that were ingrained by force.

It is great no longer being required to have two "raid" specs. While I trained, practiced, and played with SV and BM as secondary raid specs, they were not my cup of tea. I'm a Marksman Hunter - I always have been and always will be. The fact that I can now put my secondary spec back to MM PvP, allowing me to switch back and forth without a second thought, is like trading out a work uniform for casual sweats.

I do miss having a popular Vent. I have no idea if it is a true trend, but my more casual guild rarely has anyone in Vent, while my more hard core guild's Vent was rarely empty. The same went for gchat: the casual guild kept more to themselves or restricted conversations to tells, and the serious raiding guild was always abuzz with conversation. It was how you maintained your face in the guild, by keeping up with everyone else and participating in discussions. Even if I'm not really one to keep the chatter flowing, it was nice just to hear other's speak - it gives a more intimate feeling to your fellow raiders.

However, I am loving - really, truly loving - being back on a server that knows how to PvP. Since I've been back, we have successfully defended Wintergrasp three times. That was unheard of on Turalyon. We've never lost an offensive push either. The battlegrounds are hit or miss, but I don't mind that so much. People know how to play, and the queues are no longer over five minutes.

I have accumulated a bit of a catchphase since being back, though: "Hella geared." Admittedly, Kilrogg's Horde is not as progressed as Turalyon's Horde, so I now outstrip my guildees in terms of gear score, and people notice. It is a bit depressing seeing so few Ironbound drakes around (only four guilds on server got Glory of the Ulduar Raider 25), and it can be frustrating finding that delicate gray area between trying to help and bragging.

Am I the same Neg that I was before I left? No, certainly not. But I hope I'm not a worse one.

A Thanksgiving Secret

2009-11-26T10:18:00.002-05:00

Partially inspired by Pike's Thanksgiving post and partially inspired by thoughts of what is keeping me attached to the game, here is a fun little secret that I've been harboring for awhile.

I am thankful that this year's Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, so I can get my LFG fix to sate Neg' gigantic crush on Krunch. We are talking massive, full-out fantasizing, fan-girl crush, and it makes the RL side of Neg look at her fantasy side with a kind of weird "are-you-really-a-part-of-me?!" kinda glance.

I have no problem admitting that one of the things holding me to WoW right now is the fact that I simply adore Neg as a character. There has been enough time and effort into her at this point that she has developed with a considerable amount of complexity (including love interests), and the thought of shutting the game down and losing her forever is frankly a bit scary. After all, how many opportunities do you get to create a fantasy character complete with visuals of herself and her world? (Side note: Is this how they keep the fantasy RPG players hooked? "Noooo, I can't let Myself die!!")

Anyway, Neg dreams of doing the whole Arwen-Aragorn encounter: "What's this, a Bloodrage, caught off his guard?" and that keeps her mind preoccupied for a bit. That's one of Neg's little secrets, and she would probably Shoveltusk-stick you all to death if you knew.

My inner Dorothy is showing

2009-11-25T15:47:00.002-05:00

There is no place like home.

There, I said it. Happy?

I'm going back to Kilrogg, where I can be happy as I finish out the remainder of my WoW days. I'll transfer one character over at a time, I'm thinking one per pay check. This way I can play with friends, and sure as hell know a better PvP experience. If there is anything I miss more than friends when I transferred to Turalyon, it was the battlegroup. Bloodlust >>>>> Stormstrike.

It means I can't raid either, which is a very good thing. I should be able to get in some 10 mans from time to time, and that should allow me to see the end content. Maybe when the Boy is out, I can sneak in for some 25 mans, too. Just don't tell him >_>

But most importantly, I'll be back among people I truely loved playing the game with, even if it is casually.

Looking out for Number One

2009-11-25T09:37:00.003-05:00

It's a very strange experience playing this game for myself. My entire Warcraft career has been a joint venture with others, and now that no one else exists, I am discovering what it's like to do it alone.

It's not very fun.

For three years, it was the Boy. I credit WoW with a lot towards maintaining our long-distance relationship, and while in the early years I was concerned what would happen should one of us quit, when he finally could no longer raid due to work conflicts in our fourth yeah, I wasn't too worried. We both had enough on our plates to keep us motivated until graduation.

So I started playing for the raiders. This was never a genuine altruistic endeavor, since I raid to have fun as well, but the thought of being relied upon kept me logging in every night. I enjoyed having that responsibility, and in a sad sorta way, I needed it. Social life, what is that?

Now the Boy is playing Chocobo's Dungeon (a dangerously cute game) and the raiders are gone - what's a girl to do? Being guildless sucks. Do you know what it's like to actually enjoy Trade Chat?! It's horrific! But damn that social interaction, and how addictive it is. I have been hanging out in the old Vent server, but that'll be gone on December 1st. I did have a successful venture with a Gnome Mage looking to swap Steady Hands, and that was fun.

I really should find some sort of squatter guild, just so when I do log on, I won't be so lonely.

(Also, if some one wants to get me a Christmas present, the t-shirt I've wanted forever is finally for sale.)

So....

2009-11-22T22:50:00.002-05:00

So...

Originally, this was going to be a post about raid roles and not bitching to your peers that you are always assigned to raid-support role, but other things happened.

The guild finally imploded, and I'm homeless.

So...

I'm slightly uncertain what to do. Part of me just want to embrace this and go casual, but the other part of me wants to continue on and find a new raiding guild. I really did want to go with this expansion to the end, finish Arthas and put a cap on all the lore, but so much happened this expansion that I sincerely do not like, and there's a part of me that would be okay with walking away from it now.

It is a very strange feeling having the floor fall out from under your feet. All my in guild goals and what not are now void - I had this mock ambition to be the top achievement whore in the guild, in competition with another - so now I need to reorient myself. I can't say I'm not just a bit disappointed. It was such a difficult decision to join this guild, and while it wasn't a complete let down, it was simply completely unlike anything I had experienced before, and I know I changed considerably because of it. I wonder how things would have turned out if I had gone a different route. I wonder where I would be now if I had.

I genuinely feel indebted to the members of the guild that worked hard to get us where we were and had the tenacity to push on, and I feel sorry that they had to be let down in such a manner when they are capable of bigger and better things. Good luck to you guys, in all your adventures. May the winds guide you, and what not...

And now I'm here. I don't particularly want to server jump. A hundred smakeroos is kinda tough to justify right now, what with the holiday and all. There is no way I would ever go Alliance. I'd like to be in guild with the friends I made while on Turalyon, even just for the social aspect of it. Maybe I'll join a PvP guild, or something...

My current subsciption expires on the 3rd, so I changed it to a monthly, just until I know what I'm going to do. No worries, the Butterfly will continue be here until I leave for good.

Why? Because it's burnt-orange

2009-11-18T13:09:00.002-05:00

Also, sorry commenters, but the botters are out in full force, so I'm going to have to disable anonymous commenting. Too many malicious links out there!

BiS and what it really means

2009-11-17T09:50:00.002-05:00

A lot of people turn to Elitest Jerks infamous Best Possible DPS thread to look for how they should be gearing/gemming/glyphing/etc through Shandaras awesome spreadsheet. While I cannot and should not encourage anyone from not using this as a reference, it is important to keep in mind a few facts.

First of all, the spreadsheet is completely idealized. If you are such a lucky individual that you can get every single raid buff and target debuff for every fight on every target for every night of raiding, then I count you a more fortunate person than 99% of raiders that I know. The gear that makes up the Best Possible DPS does not take into consideration that hunters are more often than not the off-target DPS bitch. We bring a lot of burst damage that can easy take down sparks and snobalds. Obviously, since we rely so heavily on other class' debuffs (really, sunders can DIAF), this is not ideal, but such is the curse of having instant spells. The gear suggested as BiS sometimes doesn't take into consideration that Judgement of Wisdom or Faerie Fire will not be on your target.

Second of all, consider the odds of truly getting every single item listed on that spreadsheet. I have no doubt that there are some individuals that have received them or are in line to receive them, but what are your odds of getting them. You need to take into consideration what gear you have now and what gear you have a chance of getting.

From the 92a version of Shandaras spreadsheet, this is what is currently Best in Slot for MM hunters:

Main Hand: Hellion Glaive (H) enchanted with Massacre and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Ranged Weapon: Fezzik's Autocannon enchanted with Heartseeker Scope and gemmed with a Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Head: Windrunner's Headpiece of Triumph (H) enchanted with Arcanum of Torment and gemmed with a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond and a Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Neck: Collar of Unending Torment (H) gemmed with a Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Devourer enchanted with Greater Inscription of the Axe and gemmed with Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Back: Sylvanas' Cunning enchanted with Major Agility and gemmed with Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Chest: Vest of Shifting Shadows (H) enchanted with Powerful Stats and gemmed with a Deadly Ametrine and two Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Wrist: Bracers of the Silent Massacre (H) enchanted with Greater Assault and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Ruby (Blacksmithing socket)

Hands: Sunreaver Assassin's Gloves (H) enchanted with Major Agility and gemmed with three Fractured Cardinal Ruby (Blacksmithing socket)

Waist: Waistguard of Deathly Dominion (H) gemmed with Nightmare Tear, Fractured Cardinal Ruby, and a Fractured Dragon's Eye

Legs: Windrunner's Legguards of Triumph (H) enchanted with Icescale Leg Armor and gemmed with Fractured Dragon's Eye and Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Feet: Greaves of Ruthless Judgment (H) enchanted with Superior Agility and gemmed with two Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Ring 1: Band of Callous Aggression (H) gemmed with Fractured Dragon's Eye

Ring 2: Planestalker Band (H) gemmed with Fractured Cardinal Ruby

Trinket 1: Death's Choice (H)

Trinket 2: Death's Choice

Okay, let's look at the most glaringly obvious thing first. Two Death's Choice. TWO. There is not enough luck in the world that could guarantee the majority of players will enjoy such a pair of trinkets (and is, in my opinion, one of the greatest failures of the whole Normal vs. Heroic instance system). So what is done to compensate for pairing up the replacement for Greatness with its Heroic counterpart? Why, reaching the Armor Pen cap passively! Nearly every single socket has ArPen plugged into it. Two pieces of mail gear are substituted in favor of leather gear to better stack ArPen, and a nice chunk of mana goes with that lost Int.

However, while the improbably of getting the majority of the gear listed here is high enough, I will concede that the probably of just getting the next comparable level of gear is equally as improbable considering the number of pieces that drop from Anub'arak and the chest provided after his death. At least with the two listed leather pieces one reduces the number of Regalia's needed from the chest by two, even though the extra ArPen is unnecessary with one of the ArPen proc trinkets, so should be taken only with that in mind. While the four-piece bonus is fairly lackluster in the grand scheme of things and can afford to be broken, I highly recommend you consider your own hit, ArPen, and mana pool before taking one of the leather pieces.

In the end, it is important that you look at your own gear and figure out how to balance your stats yourself instead of relying on the spreadsheet to tell you how it is done. It is a useful tool, but should always be taken with a grain of salt.

And boom goes the dynamite

2009-11-16T15:29:00.003-05:00

I always wonder if it's a good or bad thing that a raid night I miss ends up being overly dramatic. On one hand, there is a lot of bad play, a lot of overreactions, short tempers, and anal retentiveness just to push people a little closer to the edge, and that is the sort of thing I really don't envy being present for. On the other hand, the issues behind all of that behavior is usually discussed as well, along with potential problem solving, and I generally like being around to hear the solution.

I posted my absence to celebrate the Boy's 26th birthday and enjoy the night together before he left for a week in Alabama. (When the lady at the rental car counter noticed it was his birthday, she began singing the Birthday Song, which the rest of the rental counters joined in, followed by the adjacent baggage claim. Over 150 people singing Happy Birthday to a complete stranger. The Boy was somewhat freaked out, but soothed by the free rental upgrade they gave him.) I honestly can't recall what we were working on - it was either Ulduar or H:ToC - but I had only missed one other 25 man raid in the history of my guild membership, so I didn't feel quilty taking the night off. Evidently it was a bad choice.

I still have no idea the exact details of the night, and I probably don't want to know. I can glean that it was an overall poor night by the angry posts on the guild forums, and I wonder if it's going to have any lasting effects among membership. The guild still existed when I logged in today, and nobody had gquit that I noticed, so I'm not too concerned.

What would I do if my guild imploded? Eh, I wouldn't server hop again. A hundred dollars is hard to cough up just to try again. Even through I am fairly eager to see Icecrown, I think it would signal the end of my raiding career. I would probably tinker around with my alts for awhile, but go purely casual overall and then putter out with the end of the time on my account.

Anyway, everything is okay... for now. I think. I hope.

Ze new ArPen Trink

2009-11-12T13:24:00.004-05:00

MMOChamp has been data mining away like they do best, and gear is starting to appear. The hot topic of the moment for hunters is the shiny new trinket.

Here are the stats:

Needle-Encrusted Scorpion
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 232
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 114 (2.48% @ L80).
Equip: Chance on melee or ranged critical strike to increase your armor penetration rating by 452 for 10 sec.

Now at first glance, this is pretty awesome. A new crit plus ArPen proc trinket that we all love to have to update Mjolnir Runestone or Grim Toll.

But wait... chance on CRITICAL STRIKE? Ugh... And 452 is significantly less than 612 or 665, which means more ArPen gems.

In a nutshell, for 12 more crit, you can get... not much. Unless they lower the internal cooldown (which I doubt they will), this trinket is good if you never could get the Ulduar 10 Runestone or the Naxx25 Grim Toll to drop, and since it drops in H: Devourer of Souls (one of the new 5mans), you can farm this one to your content. I'm gonna continue to cradle my oh-so-expensive Runestone until some more info comes out.

Know what I would rather have though? A FUCKING REPLACEMENT FOR GREATNESS THAT IS A 100% DROP. *exhale* *exhale* *exhale*

Oh, and yes, I will be doing Raiding Hunter Loot in 3.3 once all the gear is announced. Patience!

Miscellaneous

2009-11-11T11:57:00.002-05:00

I am poor again:

Man, Lady Taurens just look so bad-ass on that thing.

I suffered a severe brain fart: My thinking regarding my hit reverted back to the 9% cap instead of the 8%, and I was running around with over a percent extra for several weeks until one of our new hunters pointed it out to me. /headdesk

Luckily, it was short lived, as we tried out a double ToC run, where half of the raid would be mains and the other half would be alts, ensuring that more mains would get gear and less gear would be sharded. It was terribly confusing for me, for some odd reason, and I sorta played in a daze because of it. Nothing really awesome dropped for either group - just Twin's Pact again - but a certain belt did drop from Anub in my group, solving all hit problems and letting me spec into what is pretty much my ideal spec for our raid.

And then in H:ToC that night our fifth Twin's Pact dropped instead of something better, so I just said 'Fuck it, I'll live with the haste' and took it.

Now I'm figuring out some of the new gemming concepts that are coming out. Words through the grapevine mention Deady Ametrine being useful where gemming for some crit is actually better than gemming for pure Agility, depending on your crit rating. Me being the skeptic that I am (not to mention stubborn), I'd like to see some numbers for this, so besides plugging away at my own spreadsheet, one of you more math-inclined bloggers should totally do a post about this. Yeah, you.

Fuck Anub'arak's Leeching Swarm

2009-11-09T12:35:00.004-05:00

The Big Bad Bug is not dead yet, but we are getting closer. With several goes at Phase 3, it is now a healer fight.

We tweeked our strat just a bit, taking the hunters off of Misdirection and Volley duty all together. Our AoE is crap compared to every other class', so we went single target only with better results; Anub is going down about 27% each phase, and that's with several new people in the raid. We are getting through each attempt fairly cleanly, and while stupid mistakes always happen, even our best attempts get fucked over by the encounter's bugginess. Ready to ship and working as intended, my pretty little butterfly ass...

Sometimes the adds aggro onto the MT for no apparent reason (no taunt, no DPS, nada), resulting in them slow to the ice. Sometimes the targeted player for the pursuing spikes will outrange the spell, and it will switch without warning. Sometimes the spikes won't register the ice and just kill the player ontop of the ice instead. It's enough to drive you mad.

Regardless, we are getting closer, and I'm okay with the hunter's new roles. Pre-potting before the pull and popping CDs within the first ten seconds ensures that Call of the Wild will be up again and access to a Frost Resist potion will be available for P3 . No mana worries either, since the boss is being judged for Wisdom and life is grand. Fifteen seconds in Viper during P2 sets you up perfectly for each return to P1. Just be warned though - if you pop CotW with Bloodlust as you near or begin P3, it probably won't be up again if you wipe soon after. It's a massive pain in the ass as we try and work on it.

Oh, and if your Hunters are not Tranqing the adds in P2, I swear I will reach through the computer and punch them. Hard. In the gonads.

Big Bad Bug go boom soon, I hope.

Solo'd

2009-11-07T22:45:00.002-05:00

As my love for the game wanes, the goals I set for myself lower. Once it was DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE, then it became SEE AND DEFEAT ARTHAS, now it's just down to GET 9000 ACHIEVEMENT POINTS. The next patch brings the Feat of Strength recognizing this benchmark, and I aim to get it before 3.3 hits.

I was sitting at 8950 tonight, slightly bored. I had just finished Loremaster for the third time. I could go level one of my alts, patiently sitting around for me to get to them. I need to go farm ore on my DK, but it is painful as hell to fly around at 150% when you are so used to 310%. So I thought, I'm only missing The Mechanar from my Outland Dungeon Hero meta - can I solo it?

Now, I'm not the solo-adventurer that so many other hunters are. I know such things are possible, I know I am capable of doing them, and I know such ventures are typically very profitable, but they just never appealed to me. So I looked up what I needed to do, what bosses I absolutely had to kill, and decided, eh, why not? No doubt I'm totally and completely overgeared for it.

At first I tried to skip some mobs. Not a bright idea. While the humanoids wouldn't aggro, the patrolling mechanicals would, and they hit HARD. I ended up running out of the instance twice within the first five minutes, barely saving me a repair bill. Clearing the trash, I could kill the humanoids in a couple of shots, but the big guys took a bit to kill, and my turtle tank didn't live through several pulls.

Once I killed the two mini-bosses, I thought I was in the homefree. I took the elevator up, killed some trash, and prepared to run down to the last boss. And then some adds spawned on top of me. I had totally forgotten about the gauntlet boss. Fortunately for me (after I had flown back from the graveyard) I discovered that each wave could be reset by Feign Death, giving me the opportunity to heal, gain mana, and rez my pet between each hard-hitting mechanical.

And then there I was, sitting before Pathaleon the Calculator (oh, how the nerd in me smiles every time), healing my pet, drinking back some mana, and then recalled that he has a timed aggro as he came running towards me. Okay, so a quick Misdirection to Maturin, and pew pew! But wait! I'm mind controlled... Fortunately, I had spammed a heal for the turtle before hand, so I could only watch as I blew Warstomp (seriously WTF AI??), dropped some traps (for all that melee coming to me), and autoshotted my pet.

In the end, success:

Only twenty more geek points to go.

Ahn'Kawho?

2009-11-06T10:05:00.003-05:00

I can't say I'm very impressed with Blizzard's turning trend of naming tier gear. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort - only so many Stalker names are out there, I know - but now they are making it confusing.

It doesn't help that hunters are already a little embittered about the whole T9 bit. Even though the whole Horde get one name for an item, the Alliance get another bit made it painful as hell to communicate cross faction about gear, it was fairly noticeable that hunters got cheated for original faction hero names. Windrunner and Windrunner - sister hunters separated by faction - very clever.

Tier 10 names have been released, and they are... strange. Even lore-lover me had to stop and think about where these were coming from. Hunters get "Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Battlegear," while other classes get names like "Ymirjar Lord's Plate," "Frost Witch's Regalia," and "Crimson Acolyte's Raiment." See the trend here? Nearly every class' tier gear draws its title from our enemies. Only paladins make out with a good-aligned name: "Lightsworn Garb."

This makes me think - are we salvaging our tier gear from the depths of Icecrown Citadel to better go unnoticed as we work towards the Frozen Throne? Are the paladins just too goody-two-shoes, and their fancy-pansy light just can't bear be blighted by wearing the enemy's armor? WHY AM I WEARING A DEAD NERUBIAN ON MY HEAD?

Neg wants to know!

A 100 Greedy Roll

2009-11-05T10:39:00.002-05:00

In the grand scheme of things, I'm well aware that capitalism is the way to maintain a stable economy - I'm not one of those liberals that has a delusion otherwise - but it doesn't mean some of the values it encourages are good. Like greed. Completely speculating (I have not seen their numbers), I find it hard to believe that Blizzard is hurting for money, but they will continue bleeding some things dry.

I suppose they simply got tired of charging a flat fee for the TCG pets and watching the lucky purchasers sell the cards for outlandish sums, so they introduced a Pet Store, a online site where you can pay $10 (real good' ol money) for a new ingame pet. My favorite part of this was the first line of the FAQ:

Why are you introducing this service?
The Pet Store provides a new way for players to obtain unique companion pets outside of the game, which is something that has been requested by many players who enjoy World of Warcraft's non-combat companions.

Yay for unique companion pets outside of the game! After all, if I'm paying real money for a such things, I want them to be an tangible object that will follow me around IRL. People may now conveniently purchase a cute, unique NPC pet from the comfort of their own home, without having to make that extra mile to the comic store. How kind of Blizzard!

Let's face it - they are offering simple programming typically already available in game for the cost of the time farming for it or the gold necessary to buy it from a 'dealer'; time that is already paid to Blizzard and considered by you to be entertainment regardless, and now they want more.

No, you are not being forced to buy it. Yes, this is how business works (after all, Blizzard is trying to keep up with that competition! ... Oh, wai-). However, it is coming to the point where the products are getting sillier and cheaper. Pay additional money to revert a decision made upon purchasing the game. Pay to get some shiney, fun pixels (which makes me wonder when we will be paying money for weapon upgrades a la Diablo). And in terms of quality, if the trailor for Cataclysm is any indication, I have no high hopes for expansion. Sorry, Blizzard, but if I want cheap, quirky crap, I'd shop exclusively at Walmart.

What happens when a biologist marries a rocket scientist?

2009-11-01T23:40:00.002-05:00

Nerdiness.

(Organic brownies to the first person that links the inspiration.)

Movie Break: Where The Wild Things Are

2009-10-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

The Boy came home today after two weeks in Hawai'i for work. We did some chores around DC (turned in my five-year-old iPod for a 10% recycling discount on a new one for the Boy) then headed home, where we shared a lobster dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (so delicious and so expensive, in more ways than one...). Our treat was a 10PM showing of "Where The Wild Things Are."

I remember this book from my childhood, as should everyone else, and when I first saw the preview for it, my memory instantly took me back to being eight-years-old, curled up in my bed, eyes round with the thought of a jungle full of giant, walking beasts. I couldn't wait. However, unlike what some might glean from the previews, this is not a children's movie, nor is it a teen movie, nor really an adult movie. It's art, pure and simple. And it is beautifully done.

If you are not the type that can appreciate the imagination and vision of childhood, this movie is not for you. The biased adult mind sees too much in this movie - the Boy even admitted to that. He wanted to overcomplicate it, try to put reason and structure to it, and that is the last thing you want to apply. This is a child's world, and it obey's a child's rules for it - even down to his greatest fears and expectations.

This movie is a lovely metaphor for a child's spirit and mind. It helps that is is visually stunning - the costumes are brilliantly done - and the story keeps you reacting. You feel the emotional pain when Max recognizes what he has done to his mother when the Wild Things mirror the action. You feel his alienation when Max approaches strangers to the Family. My only complaint is the soundtrack. It was good, but I was left wanting just a little more diversity.

So if you are the type that ventured into the land of the Wild Things when you were a child, I highly recommend this work to venture there again. But if you were the type that shunned books and the world of imagination in general, I suggest you just walk on by on this one. "Saw VI" is just down the hall.

Somehow, I don't think they quite captured my beauty...

2009-10-28T23:39:00.001-04:00

Really, what were the artists thinking?

Race Matters?

2009-10-27T21:42:00.006-04:00

As most of you know now, race changes have been implemented. Just like faction changes, you can now pay $25 to change your race in faction. This means considerably fewer Undead and Tauren out there on the raiding scene. And because of this reason, I really don't like it.

Long time readers know I detest homogenization. I simply cannot stand the simplification of anything. Diversity, intricacy, complexity are parts of what makes life beautiful and interesting. It is, regardless of how desperately people wish to think otherwise, how the world works.

Now, because of racial attributes, people can pay more money to increase their raid abilities, and a little bit of what makes the game fun dies. The fact that innate talents given to specific races statistically insignificant DPS benefits over others, punishing (however insignificantly) those that didn't recognize at the time of their rolling of their character five years ago. You should not be taxed for an aesthetic.

This is another account of one enjoyable condition of play being divided between PvP and PvE. Like the BC days, one side of a play aspect is "obviously" PvP oriented while the other has free reign. Specs are normalized finally, thankfully, but now you are being penalized for your choice of race.

The racials do not make or break the class' ability to pump out the numbers. After all, you don't see every progressive guild going Alliance for the free talent point. They do provide a difference, that's an annoying fact that cannot be denied, but in the grand scope of things, that difference is tiny. Not something worth an additional $25, in my opinion.

Time to go through the reports

2009-10-27T16:32:00.003-04:00

It's ever so entertaining for a blogger to go through their numbers and discover what exactly is making their blog tick. Every time I go to my Google Analytics Dashboard, my mind is boggled how many sites mention the Butterfly, how many terms are Google'd and lead here, and what percentage of people directly come here. I never dreamed the Butterfly would become an iota as popular as it is, so, as always, a deepest thanks to you, Readers.

So as I dig through the numbers, this is what I find:

The vast majority of people that come here Google for "Angry Butterfly" or some variant. Wow. That's all sorts of awesome.

Followed closely, in runner up, are hits for Leatherworking - Ulduar, leveling, or otherwise. This makes me realize I never did one for ToC... A bit late now, I suppose.

In third place are a bunch of hits for gear - named items that find my gear posts.

Finally, there are the miscellaneous hits. "Slyvanas naked" will never fall from my keywords page, I swear... Yes, the Venomhide Raptor scales awesomely with a Tauren. And if Alliance never win Eye of the Storm, I want to know what battlegroup you are on...

But what about the people? Today, around 70 of you are visiting for the first time - 100 of you are returning for more. Obviously, the majority of people are reading this in English, but some go for Swedish (65 in the last month), German (64), and Dutch (63), along with 37 other languages.

I love looking at the map as well:

Hi, South Africa! This post goes out to you! Man, the Internet is awesome.

I applaud so many of you for using Firefox over IE and using Google over Yahoo.

At last, who is linking: A lot of other bloggers, of course. I never fails to make me smile with the thought of who is going to bring me more hits this month, Rilgon or Brigwyn? I grow my blogroll this way (ohaithar Pixelated Executioner!), but it is also interesting to see people link me in various forums. I find all sorts of guild sites (including Fusion's - eep!), wiki's, and just good ol' fashioned news sites (<3 WoWHeadlines) scattered around the referring sites list.

Have I mentioned how awesome you guys are?

Fuck Anub'arak's Hitbox

2009-10-26T11:55:00.004-04:00

We'll be spending two adjacent raid nights on HM:Anub'arak (last night and tonight), simply perfecting our strategy. While only ~200 some guilds have downed the big bad beetle, we are approaching the fight with patience and motivation, and we are finally hitting P3. This doesn't feel like the same grind on Twins, rather it has the air of Yogg - getting through the earlier phases doesn't mean much, anything can still go when he's below 30%.

The hunters (for the most part) have our duties in between the Volley spam. One of us is bringing down the orbs. Yours truly is on OT MD duty, preserving the MD charges for the back two adds. It is an interesting job, made difficult only by Anub'arak's fucking dragon-sized hitbox.

Seriously, this is Anub'arak:

And this is is hitbox:

I'm generally standing at min range, my eye on the add timer and my minimap, waiting for the adds to pop. Then I target off Anub, hit the MD macro to the OT, target an add, shoot, target the next and run, backpedal, strafe, somersault, anything to make sure I don't autoshoot one too many on one of the adds. It's a full proof system, assuming I can click on the bloody adds.

I've discovered little tricks. I can't guarantee tab targeting gets the adds I want, so I try to click on less obvious areas of their model, like their hind legs. It's always the first mob that gives me trouble, too, as I run towards them. Click, still Anub. Click, still Anub. Click, still Anub. Click, finally! Do a fast strafe away, turning my back to the mob so I don't autoshot. Click the next mob, fire. Run back to original position and volley away. I don't want to start out there (out of range of the healers and volley range), nor do I want to be with the rest of the raid. It's a tricky little balance of finding that sweet spot/area to get the MD off while maintaining AoE/single-target DPS on the boss. I pop my first Rapid Fire just as the adds go down, giving me exactly enough time to use the entire CD before the next add waves comes. It will be up again for back-to-back for P3.

The other little annoying problem I've discovered is a tendency to accidentally target someone and make them my focus, just as I'm about to MD the adds. I'll click off of Anub to prepare the MD rotation, unknowingly target someone (last time it was the other hunter, standing next to me), hit the focus/MD macro, and then, bam, I'm screwed. The MD is late, and some healer has his face eaten off. It's a simple solution - use two macros in the place of my combined - but it doesn't change the fact that it's a stupid problem to begin with.

Tonight I expect many attempts at P3. Big bad beetle go boom.

Hard Mode Twin Val'kyrs Vid

2009-10-24T22:15:00.001-04:00

Gotta love the music.

Zinaida's Memories

2009-10-24T18:40:00.003-04:00

“Do you seek vengeance, sister?”

The young Taunka girl looked up wearily, the pain shadowing her eyes not quite hiding the fear and disgust. Despite the Scourge presence in their lands for so many generations, the indigenous cousins of the Tauren were no more comfortable with the walking undead in their midst than the majority of the Horde. One that looked so eerily like themselves probably didn’t help either.

“The invading undead slaughtered my family,” the girl said, her voice trailing off into silence. The Taunka refugee uncomfortably adjusted the ragged skins covering her strong, young frame as the death knight waited for her to continue. Zinaida wondered if she was missing some allusion – did the fact that the invading Scourge slaughtered her loved ones imply she sought vengeance or not? The living were so complicated.

“I would do anything to avenge them!” the Taunka girl finally asserted, glaring up at the death knight. The glare either spoke of hatred for her existing state or of pride, Zina couldn’t decide. Probably a bit of both, she thought.

“Take the blood-oath of the Horde, and you shall have your revenge.”

The girl exhaled, the sigh a mixture of hesitance and exhaustion.

Ranrele sighed, the sound hitting Zinaida like a blow to the stomach. This was her family, all she had in the world. If they did not accept her, who would? And now even Ranrele, the most amicable sister, was conceding.

“There is nothing for you here, little sister,” said the druid. Her tone suggested she hated every word she said. And yet she still said them, the death knight thought.

She turned to her grandmother. The old shaman was hunched over the cot, starring at her weathered hands. Tears still wetted her cheeks.

“Blessed be that your father is not alive to see you this way, Tadrolle...”

Her father? She never knew him; though, from what her sisters had said, she took after their mother more regardless. Would she be equally as ashamed of her?

As if to put the torch to her pyre, Zinaida turned to Negathle. Her eldest sister had not even looked at her since she had arrived, let alone speak with her. The hunter’s face was twisted with contempt; the moth fluttering at her shoulder hissing its master’s loathing. No, there would be no support here. She recalled her sister’s adamancy for the old ways - that streak of Tauren independence and reverence for the living Earth was absent in Zina both in mind and body. She was everything Neg detested.

She turned back to Ranrele and nodded. She turned away, her chest heavy with alien emotions of abandonment and fear. She hated those feelings more than any feeling of hatred she felt toward her family. She could understand their decision; she couldn’t understand this weight on her chest

“The dead remain dead,” she heard Neg finally say behind her.

“How can I trust the dead?” asked the aged man, standing up as if preparing to fight.

Zinaida took a step back to show she poised no threat, spreading her arms to prove her lack of weapons.

“The Knights of the Ebon Blade are free from the grasp of the Scourge. Scourge though we were, we now seek to destroy that which formerly enslaved us before it enslaves the world.”

He regarded her through narrowed eyes, a scar running down his wide face, halving the bridge of his nose. This Taunka warrior already knew battle.

“They destroyed everything I had – my family, my possessions, my home. Even if I were to seek vengeance, I have no means of doing so.”

She smiled in what she hoped was an expression of comfort. “The Horde provides for its people.” Zina walked with the warrior over to a crate full of freshly forged weapons. “You will be supplied with all you need.”

The Taunka picked up an axe, testing its sharpness with a thumb.

“Have you ever witnessed the place of your birth destroyed?” he asked, turning to her.

“Remember the rolling plains of Mulgore, where you were born!”

The Tauren at her feet stared up at her, unbelieving the form standing over him was the same woman who he knew before. At least, Zina assumed she knew him from before. Perhaps they were in the same convoy once, both fresh, young soldiers of the Horde eager to test their mettle in the Plaguelands. She had no idea, nor did she really care.

“Tadrolle...” the dying man exhaled, the tattered Argent Dawn tabard on his chest swelling with his ragged breathing. She brought her sword down across his throat.

“I was born in Feralas,” Zinaida said to the corpse, her voice impassive for the atrocity she had just committed. Yet the memory caught her off guard. Feralas? A vision of lush green flashed past her vision, the sound of water falling over stones rang in her ear. She shook her head to clear the discordant thoughts and turned to leave the compound. The Lich King promised her bigger prey than a simple Tauren.

“You are lost, girl,” a troll prisoner lying on a cot said, his back to her as she passed him.

“We are a lost people,” said the woman, clutching an infant to her breast. “Everything we know is gone. We are at the mercy of the winds.”

The child Taunka looked up at her from its mother’s embrace. Too young to know emotion, capable only of reaction. Zinaida envied the limits of infancy.

“The Horde provides guidance. We can rebuild and reestablish what was lost. That is why we are here.”

The lies came effortlessly. She could see the spark of hope kindle in the young mother’s eyes. Old enough to be cautious, but young enough to still have hope. These were the most difficult to recruit. They did not have a warrior’s heart, no champion’s drive, but they were the strength of the people regardless. They maintained the homestead, prepared the feasts, mended the wounds. They could weather the Scourge, if necessary: “Better an evil we know than an evil we do not,” Zinaida had heard an old Taunka say. She aimed to avoid such considerations.

“Join with the Horde, and you will be safe.”

The mother looked west towards the tundra lands, the only world she knew. The death knight could not read her face. She turned towards Zina, her brow narrowed in determination.

“Will we still be free?”

“We are freed from His grasp!”

The sword fell from her grasp, her fingers uncurling painfully from the hilt after having clutched it for hours.

Pain.

The pain in her fingers, in her limbs, in her mind – it was just a fragment of the torrents of agony that surged through her form. Every innocent she ever killed, every friend she was forced to slay, they all came back to her in a flood of memories. The knowledge of her existence, of what she was reborn to do, she begged the ability to deny. This was not her, this was not Tadrolle Highmountain, the youngest of three sisters. This was not the warrior who sought to make the world better for her people.

The sudden absence of the Lich King’s will was like a dam disappearing from a river. Her mind and will were always there, only blocked and contained, funneled into channels for His purposes. And now everything that was denied her since her undead awaking had returned, overwhelming her senses.

And she hated it immediately.

Highlord Morgaine announced they would join forces with the people they had just been fighting against and end the evil that had abused them. Hundreds of voices cried out in triumph. Zinaida heard her voice scream with them, but it was not in dedication. It was in hatred for herself, and she wondered how many of the other voices felt the same.

As the Knights of the Ebon Blade scattered, out to rejoin the world, Zina remained at the blood-soaked battleground at Light’s Hope, rooted to the very spot her full consciousness was returned to her. She picked up the sword, given to her upon her rebirth as a blanket is given to a newborn. She traced the runes forged in the steel, enduing it with the spells that would harness her strength. She now knew what she was capable of, the power she wielded. It had never been used for good, it had never known life. It was a force born and bred for death, for suffering. And now she had to live with that knowledge.

She threw the sword away, and it struck a fallen tree with a resonating, hollow might.

The reverberating beat of the drums sounded over the night-draped land, calling the people to sanctuary. They were the drums of urgency, of speed. Come, there is safety here from the dark and cruel world.

“I am hardly able to lift an axe, young one. What would your Horde want with me?”

Zinaida smiled and kneeled down before the Taunkan grandfather.

“Your strength is here,” she said, touching a finger to her brow, “if not here.” She crossed her arms, laying her palms on her biceps, and bowed. The appearance of reverence for the aged was not completely in farce. Their knowledge of the land was vital. They knew the history of this continent far better than any other sentient race, and that would be crucial for defense against both the Scourge and Alliance.

The refugees were scattered among the huts. Many were already asleep; the sun set long ago. Those awake were encircling fires, scrapping the bottom of bowls and speaking to each other in whispers. The fire light illuminated the old man’s face, casting the features in sharp contrast. He looked as ancient as the mountains. Zina moved to sit next to him, fearing that her face in shadow, her eyes glowing blue with a frozen, inert life, would do more harm than good towards his decision.

“I need sleep,” he finally said. “I shall inform you once I wake.”

“Awaken, o daughter of the Scourge.”

It was if she was being pulled up from the warmest, deepest, most comfortable bed imaginable. What strength she had initially resisted in reflex, but it was soon gone, leaving her compliant to the power that called her.

Her eyes opened to see a place she did not know. She looked down at herself, confused by her very ability to think.

“What am I?” she heard a voice ask. It sounded from far away, but it rang in her mind indefinitely.

“You are Zinaida, a death knight of the Lich King. You live to serve Him.”

She felt the cold prod of steel on her hand. A geist was holding a sword, offering it to her. She took it, instantly comforted by its touch. This was right. This existence was good. She knew nothing of how she came to be here or what her Master aimed for, but there was no pique of curiosity. Such a drive was unnecessary.

“Take your weapon, and drive it into the flesh of this worthless intiate.”

The tall human man that spoke stepped to the side to reveal an emancipated woman chained to the wall. She was garbed in dark rags, and her eyes glowed with a furious blue light. Zinaida stepped forward, searched for confirmation inside herself that this was the correct action, received it, and buried the sword into the woman’s stomach. The dying creature howled in agony, but Zina found the action pleasing.

“You are worthy of the Lich King, Zinaida.”

She smiled in satisfaction.

The boy child smiled cheerily and waved at her as he followed his father away from the camp toward Agmar’s Hammer. This was her life now – recruiting the struggling Taunka into the very establishment that led her to her death and undeath. Perhaps the thought of a former member of the Scourge encouraging the destruction of their old masters helped deceive the refugees into thinking the Lich King’s forces were weakening. What hopeful fools they were, but fools without any better choice.

She lied for her life and she lived now to lie. Her Tauren heritage disowned her existence, her faction called upon her to use others to sow more seeds of pain. Even her membership with the Ebon Blade was based on a lie, for she had no motivation to slay Arthas. The retribution-driven leaders of the Ebon Blade would probably kill her if they knew that.

Maybe she would let them.

“Greetings, sister. Do you seek vengeance against the Scourge?”

Negathle's Achievement Services

2009-10-22T21:33:00.002-04:00

News of my last Loremaster profit snaked out to other raiders, and now I have another client - 8000g for a little more than 400 quests. On top of it, he's paying another 1000g for miscellaneous quests like The Coin Master and Well Read.

Fortunately, this time the buyer is a BC baby, and his missing quests follow a more predictable path. It is going to take a good week and a half, in all likelihood, just due to the sheer number of quests needed, and since this is Azeroth, it takes a looooong time to commute. Happily though, he skipped some of my favorite zones, allowing me to relive them again without that whole leveling stress.

So... Any other buyers out there? This is considerably more profitable than dailies. :)

Boo

2009-10-20T21:07:00.000-04:00

One year later....

Keybound

2009-10-20T08:56:00.001-04:00

I recall very early in my WoW career making the switch between clicking my abilities and keybinding them. The transition was smooth and natural - I still love the feeling of hand-dancing through my shot rotation. I'm very partial to my set up, as well. The visual person that I am works to make sure what is on screen coordinates with my keyboard. I can't have two things that are far away from each other on my bars be adjacently bound under my fingers. My spatial reasoning likes things being symmetric.

So, what's my set up? First of all, I began my life as a hunter with my main shots centralized, melee abilities off to the left, and off-shots to the right. I didn't realize it at the time, but it allowed me set up the rest of my keys without range constraint. With my main shots in the middle of the main action bar, my hand had free range of the rest of the key board. However, it didn't allow me to get into the habit of making key-modifier macros, since my hand is only in the left portion of my keyboard for melee situations. CTRL and Shift modifiers just never became a habit for me, so I balk at using them.

Here are my action bars:

A couple of macros I use are my Kill Command/Kill Shot macro, which I still spam as a remnant of the BC days, and a stopcasting/Disengage macro for middle of Steady Shot get-a-ways. For fights like HM: Twin Val'kyrs, where AoE effects come from every direction, the bottom two bars are hidden since they don't contain any vital abilities. For fight specific macros, there is a column not shown to the direct right of Master's Call, health stone, and mage food (hence the box looks uneven). My aspects are in a hidden bar off to the left of my screen, so they are not seen here. Mounts are handled by Livestock, which also applies Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack when indoors, but I keep a pair on hand just in case.

Here is my keyboard:

My hand is constantly centered with my ring finger on 5/Chimera Shot, middle on 6/Aimed Shot, and index able to do the full gambit around that area. Pinky takes care of `/Pet Attack and F4/Aspect of the Viper; ring manages 4/Disengage and F5/F6/Kill Macro in addition to Chimera; middle Y/Viper Sting, F7/Multi-Shot, and H/Mend Pet along with Aimed Shot; and index deals with U/Tranq, 7/Arcane, 8/Steady, 9/Serpent Sting, F9/Aspect of the Dragonhawk, and I/Volley. My thumb takes care of ,/Rapid Fire and ./Readiness. Silencing Shot is bound to my third mouse button under my right thumb. C/Push To Talk is handled by whatever finger is free at the time.

As you can see, I put a lot of weight on my index and middle fingers to take care of some more random effects. What I rely on them to do are the necessary abilities that for the most part do not have priority over other shots, so they should be free to do those shots when they are called for. Thus, if Jaraxuss needs to be Dispelled, I don't need to remove my fingers from my important shots in order to shoot Tranq.

Abilities I do not have keybound are those that do not necessarily have to constant throughout the fight, are only called on for circumstance, or simply have too many options. Misdirection, for example, I keep the main spell in addition to two macros for: One to keep it up on the focused tank, the other to keep it up on the target of target. Because fights can be unpredictable, I don't want to be in the habit of hitting the same keybind for the focus-target Misdirection when the situation may call for the target of target or the free Misdirection. Deterrence I do not want to hit accidentally and waste precious DPS time and the cooldown.

While I am fluent enough at maintaining a hand bound rotation, I am still working to completely transition my movements to mouse. I am such a dependent strafer, it is difficult for me to abandon WASD. Every time I go to Best Buy, I drool over the $80 mouse with seven buttons that I would love to bind to my strafe, but I just can't justify the cash. Right now I'm about 50-50 with my movements, mouseturning when I am maintaining a basic shot rotation, keyboard turning when not.

O hai thar!

2009-10-19T10:11:00.004-04:00

As one of the Beloved Readers commented: "I'm glad when you don't post much. It means you are getting important stuff in order." Well, I don't know about important, but life is moving along, and it doesn't exactly provide much material for a WoW blog along the way.

In-game:

We finally, finally downed the HM:Twin Val'kyrs. Nothing noticeable dropped (okay, a feral staff did), and I enjoyed the fight immensely. I've been a little peeved about not being able to try the whole DPS-n-soak bit [every time I was on it I either a) put too much focus on the soaking and didn't even try to DPS or b) put too much focus on the DPS, pulled aggro, and failed all around], and I was satisfied with the results. While I have enjoyed every strat we tried, this one I found more feasible for the DPS-n-soak, since you are responsible for a 12th of the field instead of a 3rd.

I've been working on a few minor projects to take up my time. I'm a third of the way done through the Gurubashi Arena Grand Master. I'm one bloody Hallowed Helm away from my new fusia protodrake. I was three Tastyfish away from winning the Stranglethorn Fishing Tourney last Sunday.

Also, I've had motivation to work on my alts. Partially, it's because of the hostility in the air as we banged our heads against the Twin Valks, and I welcomed the escape. More of it is because I need more gold. And just a tad of it is because I genuinely enjoy reliving all the lore and content. My DK is 71, my druid is 58, and my baby shaman is 34.

Finally, I've rolled another hunter. She's separate from my little inner story, but I felt I needed to relive the experience again before it irrevocably changes. It won't be the same as it was five years ago, of course, and I highly doubt she'll hit 80 before I leave the game forever, but it would still be a nice affirmation for my class.

IRL:

GRE done and taken! I was happy with the math results, not so pleased with the verbal results, and found the essays simple. I told myself I was simply writing another blog post (the fastest and lamest blog post evar), and it was amazing how easily the words came to me. I wish I could say the same for the analogies... Final results will come in less than a week, and I can finally finish that formality of a grad school application.

The Boy is gone for nearly five weeks, first to Hawai'i, then to Georgia, then some where else - I can't remember. This leaves me alone with two kittens, which means there is no one to keep them entertained while I am raiding. It is very interesting maintaining a shot rotation while your left shoulder has a kitten perched on it.

I still have a wedding to plan, and the Save-The-Date cards are not coming out as well as I had hoped. I wanted to photoshop a picture of the Boy and I playing the game of Life onto an empty roller coaster, but my skills for photoshopping are a bit rough. I never got around to getting the shot of just the Boy and I, so now I'm wondering if I'll have to just go with a sappy picture of the two of us and call it good. I don't like compromising a good idea...

So, there you have the last couple of weeks in a nutshell. It is a dry season in the Blogosphere - I have no idea how Pike manages to keep the regular flow of posts constant - and there is just not much to say that hasn't been said before. I have some plans for posts in the works (doesn't everyone?) so we'll see if I can't resurrect my ol' bloggin' self.

My brain is melting

2009-10-13T14:09:00.002-04:00

With my GRE on Thursday, I've been trying to cram a lot of studying in the past week with the result that even trying to write a word feels arduous. Seriously, I am double-checking every single word I see, freaking out that it is spelled incorrectly. The majority of my English skills seemed to have resigned in protest, such that it takes me two minutes to conjure up a correct turn of phase. All of this summing up to how much I hate tests.

The best part of doing all of this vocab studying is the recognition of words used in WoW that don't necessarily mean what they do in the proper English usage. Take 'enervate'. My first impression was, "Oh, it's sorta like innervate, so it must mean 'to infuse' or some such." Nope. It means 'to weaken'. Fuck. Luckily, some words, like neophyte or zealot are dispersed throughout the game. I smiled a bit when I saw raiment on my vocab list. I wonder if the creators of items and NPCs have a well-thumbed thesaurus on their desk.

To make matters worse, I wanted to do a thorough post concerning the social side of ingame raiding and the implications when it is ignored, but my bogged-down mind simply failed at iterating my intentions. Poo.

Anyway, happy server-maintenance Tuesday!

I only dislike ingame kittehs

2009-10-10T19:48:00.004-04:00

This is where I've been all weekend. Meet Donnie and Duskie (or Darko, haven't decided yet).

Strange how a laser pointer, two kittens, and a slippery floor completely replaces a video game...

J!NX, why must you tempt my credit card?

2009-10-10T09:42:00.003-04:00

I haven't been sorely tempted in a long time. Most tickle my funny bone, but I let them go, knowing very well I don't really need them. I've given in to two in my time: For The Horde and the standard hunter emblem. Now they come out with this:

I think I know what I'm asking the Boy for this December...

T10, or How Many Other Tier Sets Can You Find AGAIN

2009-10-08T11:20:00.007-04:00

So, I'm thinking Cryptstalker Shoulders (T3/7), Helm of Wrath (warrior T2), and some form of druid boots for the end result of looking like a giant, bloated felguard. Yay. Could be worse, I suppose. I actually like the used-look to them. Those giant buckles on the shoulders, particularly. Personally, I'm a big fan of what they have going for the rogues this time.

Hopefully they will do away with that silly different-names-across-factions crap (it's not Talonstrike - IT'S DEATH'S HEAD CROSSBOW) and stick to differentiating with colors. But what about the name?! Plaguestalker? Froststalker? ~~Howitzerstalker~~ Arthasstalker?

The really good news about T10 is the set bonuses:

Item - Hunter T10 2P Bonus - Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for until cancelled.
Item - Hunter T10 4P Bonus - ~~Your Shot abilities deal 4% increased damage to targets afflicted with Viper Sting, Serpent Sting, or Wyvern Sting.~~ When your Viper Sting, Serpent Sting, and Wyvern Sting abilities deal damage, you have a 5% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 seconds.

Not sure about the typo in the 2P - obviously there should be a time in there. Ten or fifteen seconds seems likely. Both of those bonuses are simply scaled versions of things we already have, and I love it.

Update: Boooo they changed the 4P! Bit of a downgrade, depending on what the internal CD is, but still not bad.

Algalon Vid

2009-10-07T09:16:00.003-04:00

Complete with our Vent! Ugh, yes, that's me calling out star deaths. I hate my voice.

Negathle, Astral Ranger

2009-10-06T08:04:00.003-04:00

Not that I felt anything like Chuck Norris last night. It was a weird day all around - somehow our rent didn't go through, so we got a scary notice on our front door; the Boy got chided at work for leaving a lecture early he's attended twice already - just a bunch of strange deviations that sorta caught us off guard and left me caught in quicksand early on in the raid night.

We had nine attempts left in H:ToC25, so we decided to knock them out first. Our first attempt on the Val'kyr was great - a perfect repeat of our best attempts from Thursday. I was happy to do it again and down the pair, but everything sorta fell to pieces, along with my enthusiasm. I vividly recall watching one black ball travel up right behind the light-attuned raid and thinking, "Bloody hell, I should run forward to dodge it, but I'll still get hit by the splash damage," so I sat there, ate it, and died. After the first attempt of the night, the bosses started moving strangely as well. I'm not sure what the tanks were going for, but the first mob we were on kept backtracking into the raid, leaving me struggling to find the sweetspot between doing deeps and being able to click on the portal. This was the first time it had happened in all of our attempts (and, regretfully, not the last), and my mind in its already perturbed state wasn't coming up with the clever solution it is capable of producing, so I just dealt with it stupidly, nipping the big deeps I had produced on our first attempt in the bud. On our last attempt, I was sat, whether for dying to orbs or not switching attunements fast enough (I certainly hope it was the former - I was clicking on portals as fast as neurons fire), which left me even more flustered.

Off to the Starry Dude, where we downed him in four attempts. I got scolded for just killing stars without regard to the Cosmic Smashes after the first try, something that is part of my job, and all I could give back was a weak "I'll try" for the next. I died twice to Big Bang - once because I didn't know it was coming (adding confusion to why my DBM wasn't showing all bars), the other as I was half in a black hole portal. On our kill, I had died to a star exploding (I think), rezed, only to die again as I ran to set myself up for the last 20% and phased into a black hole portal. There should be a vid of it coming up soon, so you can all watch my badness in action.

So I left raid, went to Dalaran to watch the little event, and got even more pissed at this little snippet:

A day of non-sequitors topped of with this. Can I defect to the Blue Dragonflight now? Please?

Anyway, at least my arenas went as well as could be expected for an early Monday afternoon. It helped that Ulduar25 was kind to us (we one-shotted every boss except Firefighter, which was a three-shot) and provided me with a some lovin':

I wing-clip you with a constellation!

A Horde's Crusade!

2009-10-01T22:48:00.005-04:00

Tonight's 10 man completed A Tribute to Mad Skill for the first time tonight. Various people took credit for the final kill - the shadow priest dispersion tanked, the rogue popped evasion, etc. All I know is this:

*cough*

No, everyone in the 10 man group was awesome - heals, dps, and the two tanks that are normally a tree and a kitty. Great job, Group 2 (aka Team Ninja)!

I also took a very shiny bow, despite it being a downgrade, because it is fucking hot:

I wish I could use it in the battlegrounds...

Look! Look! Misdirection doesn't suck as much!

2009-10-01T19:35:00.004-04:00

Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.

So it's still not as good as Tricks of the Trade, but it's good to know that hunters are at least getting some love back as the original bearers of the ability.

If you can dodge a wrench...

2009-10-01T10:08:00.003-04:00

I have a favorite fight of the expansion. It's been a long time coming, particularly since we are on the third full raid instance of Wrath, and nothing before it had tickled my fancy.

I have fairly high standards for the Favorite Fight title. The encounter has to represent everything about raiding I value: Fun fight, complex strategy, individual accountability, and (of course) the potential to do my job very well: AWESOME DEEPS. In 3.0, I suppose I could say that my favorite fight was Sarth plus Three Drakes, though at the time that last part was lacking, it had everything else up to par. Ulduar was more difficult. When a current guildee asked me what my favorite boss fight in the instance was, I had to actually think. XT would be up there, but hunters are always on ~~bitch~~ spark duty, so it's not as fun. Thorim would probably be it, but it is lacking in the complex strategy department.

So what about Trial of the Crusader? It's not like any of these fights are vastly different on Heroic verses Normal. Honestly, I'm not sure why the Heroic Twin Val'kyrs appeals to me so much. They don't have any different abilities, nor does the fight have any new things to kill. But as we worked on it last night, getting to 9% on our best attempt before our excitement overtook us, I was getting that feeling of thrill reminiscent of the old days. I felt like I was working on the Illidari Council again, and loving it.

The Twin Valks is a fight that can be done many different ways, and in the end, it is about finding a strat that is comfortable for the raid and sticking with it. Ours relies heavily on individual accountability, since every single DPS must change portal color and start dpsing the appropriate boss immediately should the special ability call for it. It also requires the raid to recognize their color and dodge the opposite-colored orbs if the soakers can't dive for them. It's wrought with dependence on the individual raider's ability to stay alive, and I love it.

Originally, the hunters were soaking. Obviously, this wasn't ideal for us, but we did it since the job was deligated in our direction. It was a bitch, no joke, since at best we might be able to shoot instant shots from the side as we run around trying to get orbs. Then another raider had her boyfriend watch us over her shoulder, and we drew from his suggestions to use Unholy DKs as soakers instead. Then I was in heaven.

This fight is a MM hunter's dream. Why? Piercing Shots. Any stacking DoT is going to do something similar to exponentially more DPS than any other normal ability. Check out this Recount for one attempt:

A 15k tick!! /faint

This game is going to kill me...

2009-09-29T09:06:00.002-04:00

Gather round, oh beloved readers, for it is story time at the Butterfly.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, Negathle made her first server transfer to a Real Raiding Guild. She knew her class pretty well, she was convinced she was fairly adept at end game raiding, and she was eager to prove herself. The guild she had left had killed Hydross in Serpent Shrine Cavern before falling apart, and the guild she joined had only killed two bosses after that, so she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be in terms of progression. The guild itself seemed full of nice people (with a few not-so-nice people), so Neg wanted to make sure she was making a good impression.

On her first raid with her new guild, Neg is brought in for Hydross. "Okay," she thought, "I know this boss. Just don't pull aggro!" The trash is cleared, the Frost and Nature Resist is equipped, and the tanks prepare themselves for the the pull. The Main Tank, in his shiny blue Frost Plate from Naxx40, takes a swig from his Invisibility Potion, and runs toward the boss, aggroing him and pulling him back to become Cleansed - that is, the boss assumes a frost presence and four water adds appear to be killed. Neg dutifully kills the adds, then goes back to DPSing the boss. At a certain point, the Main Tank calls for the Off Tank to take the boss across the midline of the area to be Tainted, the the process is repeated, except with four nature adds this time. Once again, Neg kills the adds and goes back to the boss. This goes on for a handful of rotations, at which point Neg is not-so-carefully DPSing the boss when he is on the frost side and suddenly notices him face her and start to head to the poison side.

Neg's Feign Death hotkey began smoking as she pounded it.

Fortunately for her, the crisis was adverted (or, at least, she thinks it was, because they didn't gkick her there on the spot), but she can still recall the pure terror she felt as the boss turned around and began making his way toward her at a time that was detrimental to the raid. All sorts of thoughts regarding the repercussions of her aggro pull danced through her head, and her heart stopped for a good two seconds.

That was over two years ago. Fast forward to last night. Neg is on a new server, in a new Real Raiding Guild. She knows her class pretty well, she is convinced she is adept at end game raiding, and she is eager to maintain herself as a quality raider. Neg had spent the first two hours of the raid night downing the Faction Champions in Heroic Trial of the Crusader, then working through the rest of the tribute attempts playing Chaotic Frogger as a soaker for the Twin Val'kyrs. She is fairly content with the night when the raid went off to spend an hour (or less) on Algalon.

Neg assumed her usual position to kill stars, but this time she fixed her targeting macro to not use Hunter's Mark on the stars, so she decided to keep Algalon marked instead. She clicked on the boss, and watched as a line of white flew from her bow to the giant constallation man. Her heart stopped for a full two seconds as the raid wiped instantaneously.

Fortunately for her, the boss simply reset and did not start the timer. However, Neg was on edge for the rest of the night, fearful to even move her mouse close to the boss before the pull was made. It had been a long time since she felt so horrified.

The End

Bad Butterfly!

2009-09-28T09:33:00.002-04:00

I have not intentionally been avoiding the blog, but, admittedly, there hasn't been much to write about. This is fairly evidenced by the lack of meaty posts in the hunter blogosphere as of late. I have one RP in progress, where I shamelessly borrow our MT's persona for my own nefarious purposes, but it is a bit of a time coming, and otherwise, I'm running dry on ideas.

I suppose I did get into a bit of an argument over on the science-blog Pharyngula about the role of the Light in the game. I see it as too much of an analog for the monotheistic religions - I want to escape to a fantasy world, not one that is eerily like reality in that aspect! Though I admit I read into and analyse content too much and probably wouldn't compare the Light to Xanity if I didn't grow up surrounded by it, I was told that it's just a game more than a few times. Oh well. If some of you want to get into an indepth discussion about the topic, we can knock it around.

Otherwise, real life has been busy busy busy. I'm meeting with my potential grad school advisor on Friday, trying to study for the GRE before I take it on the 15th, and applying the least amount of effort possible towards looking for a temporary job. Then there is the mattress shopping and the kitten adoption, the grocery shopping and Quality Time With The Boy. Neg's been a busy little bee.

In Which Neg Loses Another Piece of Sanity

2009-09-24T10:21:00.003-04:00

I am hesitant to believe that there isn't a single player out there that has never dreamt about WoW. People may claim they haven't, but I'm sure they have and just never recalled it. Most of my dreams take place just inside the computer screen. Everything is still pixelated and obeys game mechanics, conversations still take place over Vent or in speech bubbles, so it is just like I'm normally playing.

(My most vivid of these dreams took place before the officer turnover in my old guild. Mount Hyjal had become a new zone, and I recall seeing my old GM/MT at one of the new quest givers. Then I just ran around, trying not to fall off the mountain sides.)

But rarely do my WoW dreams interact with my RL dreams, or as in last night's example, my wedding anxiety dreams. Myself, my grandfather, and a child that was supposed to be my cousin but looked nothing like her, were all trying to get to my non-existant destination wedding location (Ithaca, New York? What?), but some how in between all the flights, we got lost and couldn't remember where we were going. I said to gather round, I would summon us there (using the ~~mood ring~~ summoning ring on my right hand). But, alas, I couldn't recall what the location looked like (after all, I've never been there...), instead getting all these memories of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, and my old high school. The pressure was now on me, for my little cousin could only survive the summon once, else she'll DIE. So I told myself, "I know! I'll ask my blog readers what to do! For my wedding is tomorrow, and surely they can help!"

Then I woke up, confirmed to myself that my wedding is in fact not tomorrow (rather, the Save-The-Dates go out next month), then cursed my overactive imagination.

Nerd rage!

2009-09-22T23:57:00.003-04:00

I received a shiny new upgrade the other day (after stupidly dying in a fire that I stupidly didn't notice because I was stupidly focusing on other things), and I'm enjoyed the DPS boost it is bringing. I'm still not where the officers would like me to be (comparing me to hunters from Ensidia and Fusion - if you want to feel like nothing you do is proficient, have that done to you), but I am feeling more confident as time goes on.

After a quick clear of Ony and ToC, we went in to Ulduar to forgo any patch day "love" the servers would dish out to waste H:ToC attempts. Rocky path all around, all the way up to Assembly of Iron.

If you have never done Assembly of Iron: Steelbreaker Last, it is a hunter's DPS orgasm. There is nothing you have to move out of, you move only to get the near runes during the first third of the fight, then move to set up tanking positions once Runemaster dies, and that's it. All you have to do is perfect your shot rotation, time your cooldowns well, and just crank out the DPS. There is nothing else to worry about (assuming your healers know what they are going).

I was rocking the meters on our first pull, loving that green bar at the top of recount... and we wipe.

I informed the raid that I hated them all.

So we did it again, and I pulled another beautiful green bar. And we wipe.

Another pull, another ever so lovely green bar. And we wipe.

I asked the raid if they wanted to see me cry.

With our fifth attempt (another great start, another wipe), we just gave up for the day and moved on.

Fuck my life.

Raiding Hunter Loot in 3.2.2

2009-09-22T12:53:00.002-04:00

In celebration of WoW's 5th anniversary, they are bringing back Onyxia, that beloved of raids. Aspired to at 60 (remember that awesome attunement?), fun to go back to and attempted to solo at 70 (ah, the tons of gold), then finally nerfed at 80 and solo'd out of nostaligia. Lore-wise, yes, she is dead - Lady Prestor will not make a comeback, never fear, Stormwind - so this is just fun.

...

Yeah, I'm of the opinion the dead should stay dead, but alas, we take what we are given.

So what will drop for hunters? Well, some loot that has a semblance to what she dropped pre-3.2.2. Remember that awesome purple and orange Dragonstalker helm that you were so proud to show off? Yeah, that's coming back, complete with the unnecessary shadow and fire resist! However, what really gets to me is the fact they are bringing back Quel'Serrar (I fondly recall my boyfriend's pride when getting his), Rhok'delar will not be making a comeback. Not that I don't mind them underminding the epic questline, but if you are going to bring back one, why not the other? As long as my original still remains nestled in my bank, I have no problem shooting with a blooming bow again. The 25 man loot table isn't complete yet, so perhaps there are some surprises in store.

Loot will work similiarly to the normal and Heroic modes of ToC: The same loot will be available in 10 and 25 mans, just different item levels with stats increased accordingly.

Helm
Dragonstalker Helm/Helmet

Neg's Notes: Well, it's not bad, in all honesty. However, I don't think I would break my current helm/chest t8 set bonus for it, nor forgo my plan to keep my shoulders t9 offset and complete the four peice with helm/chest. I'll have to crunch some numbers to confirm that, though.

Neck
Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant - Head quest reward

Neg's Notes: Nice amount of agility on it, but if you don't need the hit, I'd suggest sticking with an ArPen neck.

Stat Stick
Reclaimed/Reinforced Shadowstrike

Neg's Notes: "Paladins, Hunters, anyone? I am not wasting DKP on that peice of crap!" Well, maybe you will for version 2.0. I wouldn't say it's as good as Hellion Glaive, but it's definitely up there with all the other 245 stat-sticks from ToC.

Ranged
Snub-Nose Blastershot Launcher

Neg's Notes: Meh. Let's see what 25 man offers.

So Easy, A Caveman Can Do It!

2009-09-21T22:16:00.003-04:00

Or, Why WoW Is Driving Me Away.

I've already stated I have no intention of playing into Cataclysm. My final goal is Icecrown, to see Arthas in all his glory, play until the months before the expansion arrives, when everything is on farm and we are just wiling away time until 4.0, then take my leave. I want to be on top of the world, be the best hunter I am capable of being, know I cannot derive anything more from this game, and exit gracefully. Some of this I will not succeed at - I'm continuously working to better myself as a player, but I have no delusions of being THE BEST HUNTER EVAR, and I know my achievement OCD will never be satisfied - but I have a small ray of hope that I will leave the game happy.

Emphasis on the 'small'.

Honestly, I am not happy with the game. Some may translate my unhappiness to disliking my guild or disliking certain people or my general state of being, but it's not the case at all. I'm very satisfied with my guild, only vaguely annoyed at a myriad of people, and my general state of being, as I stated before, is more apathetic than anything. (Though, as the Boy wondered aloud to me: "Why are you even Arena-ing? You never sound happy when you play it.") I'm playing toward a goal, and little else.

So what's making me fall out of love with WoW? Well, the changes to the hunter class are not helping. The whole mana-to-focus issue does nothing but piss me off (read Lyraat's wonderful post on the subject), everything that was unique or semi-unique to hunters was given to other classes and made even better, and the class has been reduced essentially to the red-headed step-child of the game. Now they want to implement a system that they initially had planned (but not fully!), band-aided their tardiness with mana for the release, tried to fix the mana issues in BC and Wrath, and now they are saying fuck it, and going back to square one. Let's just say I don't have much faith in them at this point.

Then there is the raiding system. Initially, I thought I liked the idea of hard modes. Everyone has access to the bosses, then the progressive guilds get to try the boss in a different method to get better loot, etc. Everyone is happy, right? Well, the burnout comes either way. Before Wrath, the instance just had to be cleared then farmed; guilds bashed their heads on a boss until it fell and couldn't progress beyond that level of boss until they mastered it. Now, guilds bash their heads on multiple bosses' hard modes over and over again, then maybe they give up, or never try. There is no forced progression. Any bosses that don't have a hard mode have another ceiling, a timer (like Algalon) or a wipe count (like H:ToC). Such ceiling prevent the old ways of boss learning (practice practice practice), instead force fast adaptation. One side of me likes this (makes you a better player), but another side of me hates it (pining for the old ways of raiding). The tenacity and coordination it took for a guild to down a difficult boss pre-wrath now translates into successfully downing a boss in Hard Mode, and the farming begins again. The progressive guilds experience the same thing over and over again (but on hard mode!) while the middle-tier guilds clear everything, debate and tentatively poke at the hard modes, wait for the nerfs to maybe down some, but in the end are satisfied with downing the final boss in some fashion. Nothing is forcing them to work - that satisfaction of clearing the instance isn't the same. Besides, what is the end reward for a job well done? OCD points and a new toy mount. Great incentive scheme there, Blizzard. But then again, I'm not playing to better my character now, am I? My reward is a shiny new mount! (I've already ranted my thoughts on welfare epics, and you don't need to hear it again.)

That in a nut shell is my concern for Icecrown Citadel. I want the Arthas fight to be so amazing, another Illidan, another Kael'thas, another Kil'Jaeden, another C'thun, but I am terrified it will be a complete let-down (lolanub). I don't want to start out the fight easy and work my way to hard, I want to face him in his entire might, and I don't want a choice in the matter.

Most likely, I'm not going to get it. Blizzard will satisfy the masses and enable every single casual player the opportunity to down the Lich King, whether it be 10 or 25 man, normal or hard mode. It will probably be some basic strategy, without need of any resist gear, or special tanking ability, or some certain class ability, because that's what this game is now, generalized and homogeneous.

But I have a tiny bit of hope that Blizzard will surprise me, and so I'll keep grinding it out. Maybe, just maybe, I can quit satisfied.

A Hero's Tale

2009-09-19T15:23:00.006-04:00

So there we were. The Horde hadn't won Wintergrasp since yesterday. Every three hours, another humiliating defeat at the hands of the defending Alliance. The Horde of Turalyon were frustrated and exhausted, yet burning to attain victory. We would not concede defeat.

My 3v3 team had just finished a hot streak of seven straight wins, finally reaching the 1800 mark. We were eager to grind honor to reap our rewards. With Wintergrasp up, I positioned myself on a western tower of the keep, destroying the cannons from above, then jumping down on the walls to destroy the wall cannons and snipe the Alliance from above. My partners had jumped in some approaching seige engines.

As the wall crumbled below me, I ran foward to destory the inner cannons. Soon that wall had also fallen, so I rushed inside to make my way to the keep door. One of my partners in a seige cannon announced the door was about to fall. I positioned myself to be ready. Down it fell, and the bewildered Alliance watched as I ran in and took the relic.

Then I danced as fifty angry Alliance killed me.

/flex

My Spawn

2009-09-16T12:04:00.002-04:00

Ever since my guildees discovered the Butterfly, I've put up with teasing and snide references. Predictable, for sure, but I never anticipated that a handful of them would start blogging themselves. In revenge, I'll list them here. Check them out (if you dare).

I'ma Boomkin! - Seriously, this guy embarrasses everyone on the damage meters. Fun loving, always enthused, Ashvoyager vows to report about boomkin-ing trends and topics.

The Blind Times: A Warlock (and Druid!) Blog - Half Lock, Half Tree Druid (though I prefer him on his druid), Blindreaper records his perspective on WoW happenings.

Resto Shaman - The GM's blog. Whether or not Streamer will continue to indulge this interest in blogging remains to be seen...

Pizz's Pizzers - The URL says it all. Yet another hybrid class that puts us all to shame on the meters, visit Pizz' blog only if you can endure it. Yes, he will insult you, and, yes, he will prod your sensibilities in order to make you angry. But underneath that revolting exterier he actually maintains some wisdom. Emphasis on the 'some'.

I though Apathy was dispellable...

2009-09-15T10:12:00.003-04:00

I guess I don't have a druid nearby...

I'm experiencing a hard and sudden burnout from the game. No doubt the weeks of straight raiding, arena, honor-grinding, and dailies have some contribution, but all at once, I feel totally apathetic about everything. And I don't particularly like it.

Yesterday I logged on and off throughout the day to tend to chores in between honor-grinding. It was good honor-grinding too: We won nearly every EotS, AB, and IoC. I should have been happy, but all I recognized was a mental checking off of a task list. More tokens for Great Honor? Check. Next.

I logged on again before raid, but my mind wasn't in it. I listened in Vent to the officers work out plans for HM Faction Champs, but I was more interested in studying the vocab lists for the GRE. No doubt that lack of interest translated into my raiding abilities that night. I wasn't doing poorly, just distractedly. Between Misdirects, Hunter's Marks, Tranq Shots, and my normal rotation, I was far more concerned with how bloody long my GCD was than my threat table during Jaraxxus. So when I died to an Inferal, I was sat. And I didn't care.

I'm a people pleasure by nature, so when officers tell me something to improve my raiding, I work to do it. However, I feel like what they tell me to do is pulling me in different directions, and when I get talked down to for trying to compromise them, I get extremely frustrated. One officer expects more Misdirects. Okay, that's easy enough. I used to do it all the time and only stopped when my competing hunter never did them, so I felt obligated to remain competitive by not "wasting" my GCD every thirty seconds. Another officer wants every DPS to stop moving so much and stop wasting GCDs. ... Well, the first is easy enough to fix - just find a sweet spot, like he suggested. Stop wasting GCDs? Do you want MDs, or not? That's one less Steady Shot out of my normal rotation every three rotations! *sigh*

So, as I worked to compromise these requests while working on HM Beasts, I asked the tanks what direction they will be tanking the mobile worm during phase two.

"Well, it depends on where he spawns," was the answer.

Okay, fine, but you can at least be consistant. If he spawns here, which way will you go? If he spawns over here, which way will you go? I just want to be able to predict which path you are taking so I am not standing there when I set myself up to do the initial MD and never have to move again to pump out the high DPS.

Well, this didn't go over so well... "You are supposed to be moving during this encounter!" "You're a hunter, you can move and DPS" (This from the officer telling me I shouldn't be moving so much.) Since my meaning wasn't getting across, I just told them to drop it and make the bloody pull. We killed it next go, so my point was null regardless, but my frustration was evident. I was already doing what one of the officers was telling us we should be doing - watching where the worms move and set ourselves up accordingly - but I was taking pains to make sure I was in MD range to help the tank get initial threat, be spread out so bile/venom won't spalsh anyone around me, and be in a sweet spot to pump out the DPS required by the fight. I was doing my job and only requested something that should already be standardized so it is one less thing I have to be concerned about in the bloody encounter, and I get called out for it.

Frustration is exhausting, ya know?

Everything they are changing about this game and my class, plus the current state of raiding hunters, is just breaking me. Why am I even specced into ArPen DPS if I will be on icicles, snobalds, sparks, flash freezes, etc? Maybe I should just go into a mana-efficent, high burst spec since there will be no JoW on my target. Stack haste to get as many steady shots in between all my other instants. Do everything the theorycrafters tell us we shouldn't do to get high numbers, because my DPS time on the boss itself will be minimal. Hell, I'll even waste three points into Hawk Eye again and enjoy the 41 yard range that I miss so from BC. Then reaching those adds on Jaraxxus won't be a problem! Everything I want and know about my class is clashing with everything I'm called on to do, and I'm having a hell of a time trying to find that sweet spot.

I'm already resigned myself to never see the Cataclysm that will change everything about the game, but maybe I won't see Icecrown either. That was my last hold out - just see Arthas, but the apathy is touching that, too. I'm usually thrilled when we down a new encounter, but I didn't even feel a jump of excitement with Jarraxus died. Oh, look, the crossbow. Meh, I'll bid, but I don't expect to get it. (I didn't, and I don't care.) I'm not even bored, really. I have a ton to do in the game, so I'll always be busy. I'm just honestly losing interest. I miss the fact I used to be so adamant about my spec and my class and dislike how accepting I am that everything I enjoyed about this game is falling apart. I want to believe that the last four years of playing wasn't wasted, and the fear that it was does nothing to help my post-college depression...

Maybe I just need a break, or something...

/endramble

Some things never change...

2009-09-14T11:18:00.002-04:00

Beast Mastery is still mindlessly boring and overpowered... in arena at least.

So we started this weekend with a 1500 rating and ended it with a 1750. While the grind up to 1500 was long and a bit arduous when I was Marksman, the road to 1700 was a complete joke when I respecced. Pick a target, Big Red Puppy, target goes boom. My partners are considering changing the 3v3 name to "Carried by Shorty" (that would be 5'3" me).

While it is interesting seeing a health bar go down in about 10 seconds, it is otherwise very boring. Only one Deterrence. Only one Rapid-Fire mana battery. No Silence/Interrupt. No emergency Scatter. Traps are just plain ol' traps. But rogues are not so much of a problem now, so that is a welcome change.

The nerf to Beast Within is pretty obvious, and I am glad that they are giving it a minor boost in PvE since it is a complete arena nerf.

ATTN: Horde in Eye of the Storm

2009-09-12T01:08:00.005-04:00

I'm looking right at you, Stormstrike battlegroup.

In my honor farm, I frequently jump into Eye of the Storm in interest of getting a token or three for the Token Honor. Like every other battlegroup, Horde has conceeded Eye of the Storm because of the way the battleground works: You win only if you do the boring thing of holding towers and not the fun thing of getting the flag. So very few Horde queue for EotS because both it is a boring battleground and because they anticipate losing, wheras the Alliance has a full 15 immediately. The Alliance anticipate at win regardless of their team's ability because they know only a small number of Horde will begin the game. It is an annoying and vicious cycle - much like it was for Alliance in Alterac Valley several patches ago.

One EotS began with a rare 13 or 14 Horde already in by the minute mark. Encouraged by these numbers, I immediately went into leadership mode and started typing in /bg: Okay, we have numbers, this is possible - Ignore the flag and go for the towers! We immediately capped three towers, but the vast majority of the team was in the middle, squabbling over the flag. At one point, an individual that understood the mechanics of the fight grabbed the flag and at with me at Blood Elf Tower, only to be harrassed in /bg for not capping it. All this while, the other towers were exchanging hands, and I was telling the team to get out of the middle - there is no flag there and there won't be - go get the towers back.

Then some poor player uttered this: Get the flag and fuck the towers.

...

Let's just say the people in my Vent channel bore witness to the angry side of the Angry Butterfly...

We won the game in the end, and here are the results:

Top honor, right there. Myself and the pally below me were on defense the entire time.

While this obviously is not definitive proof if you have any knowledge of experimental data (ye gods, what a horrible experiment that would be... so many variables....), please let this motivate you to play this battleground to win, and LET THEM COME TO YOU.

It's shiny

2009-09-10T23:41:00.004-04:00

I didn't appreciate it before - I was always under the impression that the red was more attractive - but there is something about the silvery-blue that just screams HOT.

That crossbow hits like a truck! Makes me sad though, the Ulduar Hard Mode crossbow got so little love, though that didn't stop it from dropping the day after I got the ToC xbow... Also, two-piece T9.25. Serpent Sting now crits about 50% of the time, which makes me wonder how that should affect Chimera, as dictated by what the tool-tip says. Mathy thoughts are wandering around in there...

It's been a busy week already, what with the instance clears, PvP Honor farm I should be doing, and a side project I've been undertaking to buy a Mechano-hog (supporting my local engineers, of course). I couldn't pass up 5000g to finish up Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor - around 150 quests total, but the difficult to find and finish ones. And no, I am not out for hire.

Trying out BM this weekend for arena (in before they nerf it, I suppose). Admittedly, I am nervous about giving up my Scatter Shot, but evidently Big Red Wolf will be worth it (or Big Red Crab? I suppose I could tame another pet, but that means giving up my turtle-tank... and that would be the last sacrifice I'm willing to make.) It's going to be a busy couple of days, but I am definitely taking a break Friday to go see 9 with the Boy!

The Name Game

2009-09-08T13:33:00.002-04:00

IRL the Boy and I are currently dealing with a name dilemma as we plan out our lives after marriage. We both want to change our surname to a variant of his family name, but the mother-in-law invoked the Tears of You-Hate-Your-Family, so our initial efforts were shot down. Ever watch that episode from season one of The Guild where they fought Zaboo's mother? Yeah, I'm sorta envisioning that.

Anyway, I've always found it interesting how people name their toons. I value originality in names and find cliches greatly irritating. For example, I once ran down and corpse camped a flagged NE hunter that had the audacity to name his toon Drizzt. Ironic names (such as a shaman named Oprahwindfury) are always worth a chuckle, along with twist on class roles (Eyehealpets, Eyeditanks, and I'm still waiting on Eyeinnervatehunters... but I suppose that's too long). I get tired of the groaner-worthy names quickly (I knew a DK named Pinktacho), but have an appreciation for cleverness and creativity.

So where's a source? I don't think I've met a person who hasn't had some affinity for a certain name. The Boy has single 10-letter monstrosity that he came up with in his youth and now uses for the majority of his account names. He just combined a couple of words that caught his fancy to form something all-encompassing. Personally, all my toons names come from my own writing - "Negathle" means Woman of Strength in a made-up language, "Ranrele" means Woman of Learning, and "Chasle" means Woman of Song.

Of course, with these original names comes a price in pronunciation. I suffer Negathle (Ne-gath-lee) to be called all sorts of variants (Nega-thall is the most common) and people wanting to shorten it after the second vowel instead of the first consonant. Blatantly Latin-based names are frequency butchered, along with anything that is meant to have a vowel sound where a consonant is (a la Renaud).

So, since I infrequently do this, I invite everyone to tell the story of their toon's or toons' name. How did it come about, what do you like about it, and how is it misread or mispronounced?

My inner fan girl totally squealed

2009-09-07T00:13:00.003-04:00

There we were, grinding away in our new 3v3 team, learning how to work with each other, adapting to intercommunication, forming strategies against various comps, all that jazz, when somehow the conversation between matches turns to hunters in BC. I casually mentioned that the one hunter that I adored above all was Howi, that champion of Marksmanship when it was in its darkest hour.

"I totally wanted to make a sign that said, 'Tame Me, Howi'" I giggled, a bit embarrassed.

"Howitzer?" our healer and GM asks.

"Yes," I reply, slightly amused. "How did you know?"

"He's on the server."

"OH MY GOD NO WAI."

Okay, maybe my outer fan girl squealed, too...

I must have known it at sometime, read his guild tag on the Official Forums, but I never made the connection since he quit his hunter so long ago, and I later jumped servers.

So, here I am, on the same server as one of the greatest and well-known hunters. Do I talk to him? Do I send him a pic with a sign that says "Howi, be my Beast Within"? Or do I just adore him from afar, fawning over his mere proximity to me?

Oh, the dilemmas of a fan girl...

Anyway, our 3v3 experience has been advancing well. I'm still working on getting in the mindset of "survive" instead of "big numbers". I have definitely become pro at deterrence and disengage, and ever so slowly becoming adept at Freezing Arrow! My favorite experience so far was facing one on one with a lady Tauren DK. It had to be an awesome sight for a spectator!

Armor Pen Nerf AKA FU MM Hunters <3 Blizzard

2009-09-04T23:47:00.003-04:00

From Ghostcrawler:

The nerf to armor pen in 3.2.2 is intentional. Compared to the recent buff where we increased the value of armor rating to 125%, this nerf would take it back down to 110%. While we are still evaluating the effects of this change in the 3.2.2 build, we did want to let you know of the possibility in case you were about to spend a lot on armor pen gems.

In fact, this was really the point. Several melee specs (and Marksman hunters) had begun to focus on armor pen at the expense of all other stats. Gear without armor pen was being passed over and gem sockets were increasingly being filled with just this one stat. While every spec has stats that are more valuable than others, this one felt like it was starting to trump everything. Not coincidentally, characters stacking lots of armor pen were starting to do more damage than their peers and more damage than we were comfortable with.

This change is largely for PvE reasons, though we won't cry at all if melee damage in PvP drops a little as a result.

We're letting you know now so that this doesn't feel like a stealth nerf, assuming it goes live. While you might disagree or be frustrated by the change (though I also suspect it won't come as a surprise to many players), we ask that you try and keep your response to something appropriate for these forums.

So....

Sooooooo.....

Even though I haven't had the pleasure of reaching the hard cap for armor pen yet, I have enjoyed watching my DPS increase with every new piece of gear I get. There can be no doubt that ArPen has allowed MM Hunters to finally compete with SV again, but can Blizzard allow that? Of course not.

Yet another fucking straw.

Giddiness

2009-09-03T18:18:00.003-04:00

It was brought up in Rilgon's chat after his podcast recording that my guild was going through a merger. Said collusion of two raiding guilds had been under discussion for several weeks, until finally undertaken on Tuesday. The guild that joined ours was somewhat similar to my old guild: Progression minded, but not cutthroat. So, it was expected that we would have a slew of gquits and gkicks from both parties as the guild officers work to form a raiding core.

Tuesday's raid went very well: We disposed Anub'arak quickly enough, and then went on to Ulduar. Raiders were brought in and out of the instance for comparison purposes all night, and overall it was a successful and smooth run. Last night, however, was proof that the merger is a success.

We downed Firefighter in two hours. Then we walked into the Conservatory of Life and downed Freya with three Elders up. Two Hard Modes in one night; the latter we essentially walked in and sucker-punched. It was an amazing night, and we all left feeling confident withourselves. Sure, it was two Hard Modes after they were nerfed, but they were two Hard Modes that only two other guilds on the server had completed. We had shot up the ranks of guilds in a matter of four hours.

I felt like singing. Of course, when I get excited like that, my cheeriness begins to affect my sensiblities, so I was probably a little more chattery than I would have normally approved of (Hard Mode Ownage, the next cheap girly drink?). To top it all off, the players who I was loathe to play with due to attitude, play style, or some combination of those two were either booted or quit willingly, making me even more cheery. We lost one hunter due to RL stress, and another just gquit without saying a word, making our net influx of hunters equal to zero.

To add more to the flurry of the last few days, our main tank and healing lead (with a certain spacebubble mace) asked me if I would be interested in a DK + Shaman + Hunter 3v3 team. Now, in my list of priorities for enjoying this game are in order of PvE > Battlegrounds > Arena, but I wouldn't sooner be dead than passing up a new challange, particularly one with a coordinated PvP goal. I miss my old battleground considerably, so to be involved in an organized PvP effort again was a breath of life. The irony, however, did not escape me that immediately after changing my PvP spec to a Vezax-approved SV spec (grumble grumble, oh how I dislike that spec) I get asked to join an arena team. Tips for spec, glyphs, strats, etc. are most welcome.

My exact words: No wai

2009-09-02T00:32:00.001-04:00

I admit, my heart went a flutter when I won it.

It's Tuesday!

2009-09-01T12:00:00.002-04:00

Stupid server maintenance... Here, have some screenshots to spice up the day:

It's good to know some people still love that ancient art of kiting-bosses-across-continents.

Meet my little squire. His name is Zuggy.

When attempting Six-Minute-AV (impossible now that raid queues are banned, I swear), there is only one way to travel.

Sometimes, you just have to lay back and enjoy how beautiful this game is.

Incentive Schemes

2009-08-30T11:19:00.003-04:00

Being the uber-nerdy creature that I am, I ask many questions about WoW that are similar to many of the approaches an investigator might take when faced with a new experiment. What are the demographics of the game overall? What about per faction? What about per race or per class? Do more Republicans play Alliance or Horde? Do more mothers play healing classes? How many hours does the average person play, and what do they do during that time? How many play in order to rule the economy, simply role-play, PvP, or push raid content? And if they do all four, what is the greatest factor that keeps them playing? How much do game visuals factor into player happiness? The players that claim to have no interest in the lore or realism of the game, would they react positively, negatively, or not at all to a decrease in game animation and skins quality?

I'm sure all of this information and more exists somewhere (deep in Blizzard's vault, no doubt), and like true monopolizers of information, they use it to their advantage and profit, hence the homogenization of the game over the years. But beyond the money-making strategies, there is also a wealth of data regarding socioeconomic concepts, namely incentives. (There is also a dash of disease dynamic research as well.) What keeps players doing what they do? What is the greatest drive for raiders to down that boss? Glory? Fortune? Satisfaction in a job well done? And what can be done to keep raiders motivated after 100, 150, 200 wipes?

I've dabbled in incentives before, as have all raid leaders. A common theme I've found is the promise of either some well-known Vent voice or a non-existent Vent voice to sing as a reward for getting the act together and downing the boss. I've also witnessed a lot of "I will buy you all something" incentive schemes. However, the problem with these tactics is that they are essentially empty. No one will buy 24 other people scattered across the country ice cream. I've heard many offers of song, but only once have they come through (and it was, indeed, hilarious). The "I'll post a picture of something" tactic has positive results, but I'd like to see more data to many any conclusions. Those are all positive incentives - the raiders get something extra if they do well. But what about negative incentives? Does the fear of losing something extra if they do poorly inspire them to do better?

Tonight will be our fourth night of serious work on Firefighter. On Tuesday (the night I was out due to latency), the raid hit the enrage again with a kill only lost due to lack of DPS (and no, I do not delude myself). On Wednesday, we went back and were terrible - we actually called the raid early because of pure frustration. There was no doubt there were many stupid mistakes (myself included: Hmm can I sneak between those two mines? Nope!), so the officers are inacting a negative incentive for raiders: For every death due to avoidable mistake - mines, spinning up, standing in fire, etc. - you must pay a fee of 500g, 1000g, 2000g.

Will this work? The officers claim it did when they were working towards the Immortal in the final weeks before 3.1. This is a step-below a certain /gkick in price, but still, how much does the average raider cherish his cache of make-believe money? I have about 9000g scattered among my toons, and while I already get angry at myself for stupid mistakes, then promptly correct them next attempt, the thought of loosing some of my gold towards this endevor does inspire me to keep focused. I'm also sure my focus will be doubled when the first person messes up and forced to pay the fine. But will it work all night, and for every range of bankroll?

I guess we'll see.

Character Work

2009-08-28T13:34:00.002-04:00

I've been a bit rusty on my RP stories lately. I have the ideas in mind, but the jumble of thoughts on raiding, DPS, and the daily grind has them scattered and aimless. So, while I only read one RP-blog dutifully (Lady Tauren FTW), I do enjoy going through other's links to find more inspiration for my character's back story, particularly since I think I need more work thinking about aspects that are not directly seen through the game interface. This is from Warpriestess as a character building exercise; Steps 1-4 are listed here, Steps 5-8 will come later.

Step 1

Write five sentences about your character. Each sentence should be about a different part of your character’s life.

1. Neg dislikes trivial items and actions when there is work to be done.
2. At five years old, she watched her mother's family be slaughtered by harpies.
3. Her relationships with her pets are mostly unspoken.
4. If she has the option, she will refuse to work with the Forsaken or the Blood Elves out of principle.
5. While Neg is relatively young, she looks far older since she rarely exhibits emotions.

Step 2

Add two more sentences to each of the above on the same topics.

1. When there is a goal in mind, she will work tirelessly until it is completed. To waste a second to distractions infuriates her.
2. All young Tauren would go to her mother's clan to begin their rites of strength. She only survived the harpy raid by hiding behind a bag of ore.
3. Neg's mute relationship with her pets is not the result of lack of communication, but perfect observation. They do not need to speak in order to convey intent and information.
4. To defy the will of the Earth Mother is the greatest sacrilege Neg could imagine, so to upset the balance of nature is nothing short of disgusting to her. The Forsaken's existence alone is repulsive, and the Blood Elves' greed for power is too reminiscent of the Alliance for her taste.
5. She believes it is her memories of the days before the Horde formed that make her appear older than she really is. However, it doesn't help that she is one of the few non-healing female Tauren still active.

Step 3

Write a single sentence in opposition to the above sentences.

1. She has a small collection of memorabilia that she doesn't like to admit.
2. Her only surviving elder is her paternal grandmother.
3. Neg has only tamed one creature in opposition to its will.
4. She has only ever trusted one Forsaken with her life, and when he did not betray her trust, she became more open minded towards him.
5. She can outrun most of her peers.

Step 4

Add two more sentences to each of the above on the same topics.

1. While she finds self-decoration uninteresting, Neg does have a small cache of beautiful feathers, leaves, and other items that caught her eye over her travels. She considers it her small window of natural beauty when she is confined to more unsavory locals.
2. She wonders how life would be different raised in a stationary clan. The thought of so many families in one place overwhelms her.
3. While she was instantly attracted to the dark blue Soulflayer, its will was rebellious, and it defied their supposedly-mutual understandings many times. It was the only pet Neg ever released out of frustration.
4. As her understanding of the Forsaken increased, she felt increasingly more pity for them. However, she determined she could never fully be able to empathize with their existence, and would sooner take her own life than be reduced to such a state.
5. Growing up in the Barrens gifted her with the love of racing across the savanna. It was a skill that parent Tauren encouraged due to the rampaging centaur.

In Which Neg Rages At Her Computer

2009-08-26T09:49:00.002-04:00

Typically, I'm a very calm (if not boring) WoW player. I stare at my screen, move the keys and mouse, maybe adjust my legs around to keep circulation up. To disengage from a constant four-hour view of raid, I have a 30-gallon freshwater fish tank directly to my right that I can watch to keep me alert. I mutter expletives to myself for a myriad of reasons, but I'm mostly silent if I'm not provoked into speaking over Vent. So in a room full of gamers, I should think I wouldn't be remarkable in the slightest.

Unless I rage.

I must have been channeling a certain blueberry last night, as honestly, I can't recall a time I was more frustrated at what was happening at my screen. I lagged out, twice, in Trial of the Crusador; once during the one-shot of the Twin Valkyrs. And I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

I restarted my computer, turned off some of my heavy-memory addons. No luck. Behind me, the Boy commented that even Diablo was lagging a bit. We've had both games running at the same time without issues before, so we knew our bandwidth wasn't the problem. I prodded him further about any background apps he had running. He told me to stay calm -_-

The fact of the matter is I hate sitting out because of an outstanding issue I have no control over. I've mentioned before about my impatience on such matters. Even worse, I hate sitting out on nights I have every desire to raid. I had no interest in the loot - I had motivation to see the new encounter, sure - but I needed scant in Ulduar. But, like most Tuesdays, I'm in the raiding mood, I need my hit of fresh instance, just to keep me going for the week! Yes, my name is Neg, and I am addicted to raiding.

So, once I confessed to the issue and consequently sat, I left raid and played in some battlegrounds for awhile (lagged), then jumped over to my baby shaman to finish up some quests (and lagged). I was in a foul mood - the Boy even suggested we go watch some TV while he rubbed my feet. So, we did. There was an hour and a half left for raid, 28 guildees were on, I told the GM to text me if needed, I went off to spend some quality time with the Boy. And not even the footrubs eased my mood.

I take this game too seriously, methinks.

Another straw

2009-08-25T12:14:00.003-04:00

It's a silly matter really. When I first heard of the new legendary coming from Icecrown, my first reaction was "Legendary Stat-Stick, wooooo -_-" Yes, I was happy a Legendary would specifically be limited to the Hunters and DKs (unlike that bow), but at the same time I disliked the further depreciation of the orange gear that started with Sunwell. Two Legendaries, back-to-back again? This one, nothing more than a showpiece on a Hunter's back? Hunters were deserving, there was no opposing thought in my mind, since Kil'Jaeden essentially went the way of Kel'Thuzud 1.0 (and let's not even touch the first time a rogue picked up that beauty to "match" his glaives). But, really, a legendary stat-stick?

Then, it turned out to be a joke. An old-school joke, prominent in the day, but calcified and forgotten now: "It's a Hunter weapon." "But, sir, it's a shield-" "HUNTER WEAPON."

We've experienced Ghostcrawler's attempts at jokes before. Recall Yogg's speed-kill achievement of 22 minutes? The 31 bosses in Icecrown? Those were broad jokes, not aimed at any specific player base. But this one called out the Hunters, something I didn't think they had the balls to do considering the homogenation they've enforced. They poked fun at one of the most emotionally-charged classes of this game (which, leads me to wonder, the perecentage of women players per class...), and then shrugged it off. I'm less angry about the lack of a new Hunter legendary than I am about Blizzard's attempt at comedy. Because that was just stupid.

/endrant

Pruning the blogroll

2009-08-25T11:03:00.002-04:00

Miscellaneous subtractions and additions:

Removed:

The two-month'ers: Too Many Alts, One Among Many. I know one of those has quit, and best of luck to you!

You other two-month'ers, well, I've said it before, I enjoy your blogs considerably, so shape up, eh? I'm making an exception, but I make no promises come that three-month mark.

Added:

Mania's Arcania - How foolish of me not to link this wonderful hunter resource long ago! I've used Petopia for ages :3
OutDPS - Because a clean source of theorycrafting is always welcome

How to be a Good Raiding Grunt (as told by a former Raid Leader)

2009-08-23T23:59:00.002-04:00

In tribute to hitting the enrage with 30% left on Firefighter's Phase 4 (abet post-nerf, but alas, what can ya do), I've decided to outline how I've noticed I've changed in the transition from Raid Leader to Raid Grunt, and also what Raid Officers are looking for in their raiders, such that others might improve their raid demeanor. It's a difficult personality to assume if some of the traits are not innate, but I assure you, some of the simplest ways of impressing your raid leaders come easily. You just need to learn how to control yourself.

ALWAYS BE PREPARED

This is a no-brainer. Have your reagents, your mats, your consumables, your awareness. If this means doing dailies for an hour before raid in order to buy what you need of the AH, farming for the mats for food and flasks during the day, or simply retrieving the materials from the guild bank, so be it. Always have it done before invites go out. It may be simple enough to ask a fellow raider for a spare flask, a while it may seem like an innocent offense, officers do note it, and those instances tally up.

Additionally, know the fights and what you will be working on. Watch the movies, know the encounter. While each progressive night is a learning experience, it will always be to your benefit to not go in blind. If you are unaware of certain nuances of a fight that may be particular to your guild, ask questions from a more experienced person. Do it in class/role channels, do it in tells, even in Vent if necessary, but ask questions so you are not called out for something you should already know. Which leads me to...

COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE

For the love of the Earth Mother, so much pain and frustration can be prevented if only people were to communicate more. Make sure you know your role, and that your colleagues know theirs. Discuss in channels and tells who will be Marking what for a multiple target encounter. If there is any shadow of a doubt about which way you are running, ask a raid leader. If you die, make sure somebody else can take care of any important function you were slated to do.

But I stress that good communication does not cease with the encounter. The number one offense no raider can get away with is AFKing without informing an officer. By doing so, you not only potentially waste your own time by any ill-consequence of your ninja'd AFK, but the time of 24 other players. If it is an non-life threatening emergency, make a brief announcement, and tend to it; if it is a true emergency, hearth out while informing an officer. And there is no excuse for the lack of hearthing - it is ONE click. Before an encounter, everything is better communicated in chat as opposed to vent, as the officers have record of such things as AFKs and questions asked. During an encounter, Vent is best to make sure points get across, since your hands should be too busy dealing with your spells to type. But that said....

VENT IS NOT YOUR PLAYGROUND

One of the most frustrating aspects of trying to lead a raid is dealing with a multitude of Vent chatter when people are trying to communicate vital information to completing an encounter. I know I've had to bite my tongue many a time when I felt it necessary to cry out in Vent some bit of information. Once upon a time, that was what I had to do, and now I'm trying to get used to not doing it. If you are used to it, there is no doubt that it is a difficult habit to break. However, you have to recognize that the vast majority of what people want to say during an encounter is trivial.

If you are not leading the raid, you have no reason to talk casually in Vent during the encounter. When you die, people will notice it - you do not have to say "Oh, shit" or "Fuck me" to make it known. You died, probably stupidly, okay, that's fine. And guess what? Instead of making unnecessary noise over Vent, potentially disrupting the communications of the DR rotation, you could have typed that in raid chat instead. Now that you are dead, you have plenty of time to type! Unnecessary sound bites are one of the greatest culprits of Vent clutter. Nothing useful comes from random expletives shouted over Vent. You can curse all you want in the comfort of your own home - why do you feel it necessary to push down your PTT key at the same time? As a raiding grunt, you should speak over Vent only if asked to, and that brings me to...

NEVER ARGUE DURING RAIDS

So a healer didn't get a heal off in time, so lag prevented you from getting off that spell, so you forgot they changed the rotation this attempt. Oops. Of course it is frustrating to have some stupid mistake cause another wipe, but you losing your head over it will solve nothing. When an officer asks you what happened, they don't want a long winded answer. In fact, that is the last thing they want. Simply state what happened, then shut up. In fact, for the vast majority of the times, all you need to say (and what they want to hear) is: "I was stupid. It won't happen again." I don't care how good your are at this game, I don't care how good you think you are at this game, you will fuck up, and you can't blame it on somebody else. Accept it, fix it, and move on. Trying to cast the fault on somebody else will get the raid nowhere, and only piss off the people who are working hard to make this a successful raid.

KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU

Raid awareness is an exhausting task, there is no doubt about it. You are expected to know what is going on around you, who is around you, the status of your pets and/or abilities, and maintain a spell rotation. Rinse and repeat that about 30 times on the same encounter, and you pretty much just want to weep from the sheer amount of concentration you have exerted over the past several hours. However, it cannot be argued that tunnel vision is one of the worst habits you can get into as a raider.

My biggest form of advice to prevent that is to set some tasks on 'automatic': Be able to do your spell rotation in your sleep, such that you don't have to maintain an eye on your cooldowns. Get used to a scanning rotation of certain aspects so you can maintain them. Debuffs still up? Good. Anybody near me that shouldn't be? Nope. Is the boss about to do an ability that I need to be aware of? In 10 seconds! How's my pet health? I would say I look at my shots and abilities about 30% of my encounter time, whereas another 15% is concerned with my pet, 20% with the boss itself, and then 35% with my immediate vicinity. Of course these attention-percentages shift depending on the encounter, but any time you notice you are focusing 100% on solely one aspect of your play, then you are doing something wrong, and it needs to be remedied. If you screw up because of it, fess up and fix it.

DO YOUR ROLE TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY

Some things in this game you cannot help, but as long as you are doing what you should be doing, and doing such with the maximum amount of effort, then no one can say that you were in the wrong. Know your class' restrictions and abilities, and don't skirt duty when it is asked of you, even when you are uncertain of your performance. If you are told to kite the mob, then pew pew and move! As long as the encounter is a success, and you have no guilt as to your own performance, then you should be proud of your boss kill.

The Angry Butterfly

A Wedding Present

May the winds guide you...

The Pull

On Healing

Fuck Zod's

IT IS MINE

A Dilemma

On Writing

Connections and Memories

You know that sinking feeling in your stomach?

Loneliness

Hunter 2.0 - Level 20

So...

The World (of Warcraft) I Know

Suffer, mortals!

Hunter 2.0

They said it couldn't be done

Good-bye Greatness!

Fuck me gently with a polearm...

Personal Max DPS

OMG MY DPS IS OVER 9000!!1! INVITE!!1!

Come, fly Proudfather Airlines!

Ninty-five badges down...

I've always said it!

In over a hundred games of Wintergrasp...

I fail to see the logic, and it makes my head hurt

The fact that I restrained myself proves I'm *not* completely jaded

I lol'd

Looking out for Number One (again)

Assholes Abound

The End?

Happy Holidays from The Angry Butterfly!

Snowed In

Dear Blizzard

I spent waaaaay too much on gear today

Updated!

Get the info out

Reflections on the new LFG system

Raiding Hunter Loot in 3.3

Every which way

GDKP'd

What you miss

A Thanksgiving Secret

My inner Dorothy is showing

Looking out for Number One

So....

Why? Because it's burnt-orange

BiS and what it really means

And boom goes the dynamite

Ze new ArPen Trink

Miscellaneous

Fuck Anub'arak's Leeching Swarm

Solo'd

Ahn'Kawho?

A 100 Greedy Roll

What happens when a biologist marries a rocket scientist?

Movie Break: Where The Wild Things Are

Somehow, I don't think they quite captured my beauty...

Race Matters?

Time to go through the reports

Fuck Anub'arak's Hitbox

Hard Mode Twin Val'kyrs Vid

Zinaida's Memories

Negathle's Achievement Services

Boo

Keybound

O hai thar!

My brain is melting

I only dislike ingame kittehs

J!NX, why must you tempt my credit card?

T10, or How Many Other Tier Sets Can You Find AGAIN

Algalon Vid

Negathle, Astral Ranger

A Horde's Crusade!

Look! Look! Misdirection doesn't suck as much!

If you can dodge a wrench...

This game is going to kill me...

Bad Butterfly!

In Which Neg Loses Another Piece of Sanity

The fact that I restrained myself proves I'm not completely jaded