A walk on the wild side

Given that I'm slowly becoming more bored with my main, recently, (especially considering that I can no longer viably play in Warsong Gulch at 80, due to the overpowered state of the Paladin and Death Knight) last night I continued dusting off my very oldest alt.



Meet Cloudwalker. He is the single oldest character I have; made less than 24 hours before the character that was previously my main, a Mage. This was back in April, 2006, just after the patching in of Ahn'Qiraj. I always knew Cloud wasn't going to be my main, even at the start, but I was very curious about the Druid as a class back then, and still consider them interesting, if overly fragile.

Despite his overall age, Cloud wouldn't have more than 10 days /played, while Mirsh has more than 70, and probably more than 80 now...I haven't checked recently. The main reason for that is because during TBC in particular, I began to find his lack of survivability at low levels (he's level 30 now) to be very annoying.

I ended up doing two instance runs with him last night; one to the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, and the other to Razorfen Kraul. On both occasions I was Restoration spec, but I'd earlier tanked the SM Graveyard with him as well, a week or two ago. In RFK, although I was still Resto, we had a Priest as well, and when the tank complained that the run was going slowly because of a lack of DPS, I went into Cat form, while putting Renew and Regrowth on my Cat actionbar, and exploiting Natural Shapeshifter to rapidly shift out at times, stack HoTs on the tank when the Priest was getting overloaded, and going back to Cat.

I'm starting to realise that where hybrids are concerned, the Druid is actually a better overall fit for me than the Paladin, as well. The reason why I say this is because with Cloud, I'm willing to be genuinely role agnostic; I will join a group, ask whether they need a tank or healer, and then spec/gear accordingly. With my alt Paladin, on the other hand, if I don't tank, I don't go; healing with that class is basically a one button affair, and I can't stand it.

The other thing I appreciate whenever I play either hybrid, truthfully, which I don't get to experience with my Hunter, is being a member of a class/role that people actually have respect for, and want to have around. The Hunter has been at the very bottom of WoW's social food chain for longer than I can remember, and as much as I love the Hunter as a class, it occasionally feels good not to be a pariah all of the time.

I'm also in the process of levelling another Hunter on Nagrand. I probably won't go to 80 with her; I am thinking of probably a 29 or so twink, so I can enjoy some WSG and AB again, because I am sorely missing those. I've realised, somewhat sadly and regretfully, that the Conqueror title may never happen for me now, but c'est la vie.

BM has been fixed (slightly)

So although the Steady Shot nerf is still in place, Serpents' Swiftness has had its' pet damage coefficient raised back up to 20% in the latest patch, as reported by BRK and presumably other people. This should hopefully mean that BM is once more considered viable by the leaders of raids and pugs. ;-)

It also possibly means that it could be more viable again for a temp respec for Borean Tundra AoE leather farming for me, as well; in terms of hopefully increased pet threat generation. AoE farming with Volley used to be my main incentive for temp respeccing with BM, before 3.0.8.

To Garrandor

I had this as a comment on my last post, from Garrandor.

"It would be awesome if you did quit and took your poison elsewhere. No Doubt comparing yourself to Ghandi or Mandela or Jesus and complaining about... everything!! makes you feel better in some way, but I'm sure the internet would be a better place if you just stopped."

I probably shouldn't be giving him this degree of validation by devoting a blog post to him, but I've had him as a moderately persistent troll for a while now, and it's becoming a little tedious.

Garrandor, let me try and put this in as simple terms for you as I can, and this goes for all of my other periodic trolls, as well.

Presumably anyway, nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read this blog. Thus, if you don't like me, or reading what I write, quite simply, go away. Nobody is forcing you to be here whatsoever; I certainly am not. I do, however, have as much right to exist and to express an opinion as you do.

Forcing yourself to continue to be exposed to someone online who you dislike, and then insisting that rather than simply no longer exposing yourself to them, that they themselves should be silent, is senseless, hypocritical, and futile. You will not silence me, and while that may not have been true on the forum, here, you have no way of forcibly silencing me whatsoever.

I also, truthfully, find myself wondering what it is about my writing, that causes certain people to so adamantly and persistently demand that I be silent. If my writing is as worthless and inconsequential as you claim, how does it have the ability to cause you such anger? There is a paradox of logic, there.

I do not, by the way, compare myself with Gandhi, Mandela, or Christ; some of the content of my quotes section might have given you that impression, and if so, let me be the first to correct it. Apart from anything else, at least two of those individuals were avowed pacifists, and I most assuredly am not. I have often expressed that I am aware of the fact that I am a deeply flawed human being; I see so much evidence of that fact on a daily basis, that it would be virtually impossible for me not to be aware of it.

If, as I suspect, you are a native of that particularly saddening, lifeless breed of trolls who feel that silencing me is a justifiable moral crusade, then rest assured, upon your next comment attached to any of my posts, your IP address will be blocked.

I apologise to my other readers, and wish to assure you that I will now at least attempt to return to some marginally more positive content.

Removal of ammunition from the game

Gundersson told me about this last night.

I'm trying to figure out how to explain why I think this is a bad thing, in a way people will actually understand. I wrote a rant about it on the forum, and predictably got called a moron for it.

I guess I just feel, primarily, as though it is an immersion issue, more than anything else. I can't remember the last computer game I played, of any kind, where I had a ranged weapon of whatever type, and ammunition wasn't an issue. In most of the first person shooter games I've played, having to keep track of, and ration, various types of ammunition is usually one of the primary challenges inherent in the game.

Not only that, but having to keep track of food, water, and ammo in WoW actually felt like a defining aspect of playing the class. In real life, logistical management is one of the things Hunters have to do. I also prided myself on always having enough, when I saw a number of other Hunters running around without it. I would try and tell new Hunters to always make sure they had enough, as well...whereas Blizzard's answer to the issue apparently isn't to demand that people are more mentally active, but simply to remove things and make it easier.

It is things like this, however, which honestly make me wonder how much longer I'm going to be playing this game. Gundersson said he was giving up, but I think that was a statement made in anger in his post; I'm not sure if he really meant it or not.

I'm going to still be here, but...the game is falling apart.

Adaptation

So last night I was able to get in for a bit and do some frostweave farming in Sholazar. I haven't had much time to play recently, so it was good to be able to.

It was the first time where, for an extended period, I've had to deal with the Lock and Load CD, as well. Truthfully, it isn't as bad as I'd feared, but at times, it is still a pain in the ass.

During about mid TBC, I'd developed a two gear system utilising downranking, which enabled me to trap with a 1:1.5 rotation, and still maintain a reasonable (5-10%) rate of mana efficiency. If I was still able to do that, I truthfully wouldn't need Lock and Load at all, but unfortunately of course, I can't.

Last night I reflected that Lock and Load really needs to be given its' own button at this point; if it has to be on a CD at all, I'd greatly prefer to be able to choose directly when I use it.

What I eventually came up with was to start using Frost Trap as my staple in scenarios where I know I'm likely to be dealing with multiple adds, as opposed to Immolation. This way, even if I blow my Lock and Load proc entirely on the first mob, I will still be able to kite adds. I also never use Steady Shot, pretty much no matter what. Its' mana use is horrible.

BTW, if you ever need Frostweave, I recommend farming the undead around Freya, at the river delta in the Lost Lands. It's still fairly slow, but I got 5 stacks in probably 90 mins-2 hours, which isn't too bad.

Gundersson: How I almost became a Huntard.

(This is the first post from special guest blogger, Gundersson. In it, he brings up a number of issues which I've been having recently as well)

Yeah, so survival got buffed. Big time. We went through Naxramas theother day and I came out as top DPS in the entire 10 man by a wide margin. I'm not used to this. I'm not that well geared and I wouldn't call myself the most experienced player you've met. Even if all the time I've wasted at work poring over specs, gear and shot rotations has paid off, it still doesn't account for the ridiculously large difference between myself and the next highest DPS on Recount.

At first I was kind of bemused. As a survival hunter, being on top of the DPS charts was novel and totally unexpected. I'd heard about the buffs to Explosive Shot so I never really put it down to personal skill. The first thing that did occur to me was that if I let it go to my head I could very easily turn into the kind of player I hate. I reminded myself that this wasn't some new and incredible personal accomplishment; this was simply a dev on the other side of the world making a mistake when it came to game balance. My own personal awesomeness had as much to do with this as the weather.

Nevertheless, by the time we downed Gluth, my Ego was sitting in the chair next to me and had helped itself to a six pack from the fridge. When we hit the pre-Thadius DPS coordination it snidely mentioned to me, that I might have to reign in my awesomeness so that the other team could catch up.

After the raid my wife asked me how it went. I gave her a sly wink, and without an iota of shame, mentioned that I was on top of Recount. I think she saw the signs then, but I guess she just didn't know how to tell me. We did a few Heroics, and I pugged a bit. I respecced and dropped all my 'useless' chain trapping talents, in fact anything that didn't give me more DPS. I found myself losing my temper with pugs a lot more quickly because well, they just weren't bringing 100%. Why should I bring my Exploding Shot of Ultimate Awesome DPS to THEIR pug if they're going to let us wipe and make me pay repair bills? Granted, pugs are utterly vile and generally deserve every bad thing said about them, but that's no reason to be an outright arse.

Now, understand, a big part of the reason I went Survival, was because I believed it offered a challenge and brought something more to a group than just another DPS generator. It would keep me honest, keep me hungry and constantly looking to improve. My trapping and extra crowd control were there to help out the group. It made me a team player as opposed to a competitor. When they added the replenishment buff it was just icing on the cake for me. That's what Survival did; it helped everybody in the group. I was quite accepting of the fact that I wasn't bringing the most DPS. As long as it wasn't holding the group back, I felt I would be more than making up for it by keeping the group alive in other ways.

Unfortunately in the current PvE-Endgame/AOEfest/Celebration of Mediocrity, most players scoff at the concept of crowd control, yell 'yuck' when you mention marking, and go glassy eyed when you say there should be something more than spamming one button over and over.

This is why I love my guild, because most of them aren't like that. So half way through a guild Heroic Nexus run, our tank asks me to trap something. We all know he doesn't have to ask me to trap. Most of the time, you can roll through there with your eyes closed, if you're with guildies. So he explained on Vent, that he asks people to CC to keep them in practice; keep them on their toes. This is 'A Good Thing(tm),' or at least I've always believed it to be.

Thus I found it odd that my first reaction was one of panic. 3 Months ago if a tank had asked me to trap I would have been overjoyed at the chance to break out my skills. Now however, I panicked, and felt a little annoyed. For one, I'd specced out of my trap skills so I could maximize DPS. Additionally, I couldn't remember the last time I'd trapped anything... how did this go again?

So the pull went off and I trapped. The next one didn't go so well and the mob got away. No worries really, it's just for fun, right? On the third I broke my own trap. At another later point I dotted a mob I was supposed to trap and forgot I could just overwrite the DOT. I was getting tense. Tension gave way to anger and anger gave way to.. uhm, petulance.

However, I was still on top of Total Damage Done and DPS on Recount. This made me feel better. I looked at that Recount window with my name at the top and my lip stopped trembling. It made the bad stuff go away. I was still a man.

That was when it hit me. All the signs were there. Obsession with my position on Recount, inability to trap or do anything useful other than DPS. The Ego had taken up residence in the spare room where it came home at 3am with hookers, smelling of booze and cigarette smoke. Very soon I'd start having the irresistible urge to roll 'need' onloot that I couldn't use and yell stuff like 'LAWL' and 'N00B'. It was a slippery slope. How long till I was trolling the Wow Forums and criticizing posters based on their specs and their gear?

First thing I did was close recount. I made a deal with myself not tolook at it again. I've since removed it from my system. I'll installit if I need to troubleshoot something. It's a tool, not an expression of my masculinity and value as a human being, and that's what I'm going to tell myself every day.

Second thing I did was go and get my beloved boar back from the stable. He'd been languishing there ever since I'd started running around with that damned stupid cat to try and squeeze a few more points of DPS onto the charts.

Lastly, I'm respeccing. Those trap talents are coming back. I for one cannot friggin wait till they nerf Survival again. Good and hard. Seriously. Swing that puppy for me GC, I want to feel it.

TO THE GROUND BABY!

Offline Adventures

I have a legitimate excuse for neglecting the blog, for once.

I received my steel mailbox through my bedroom window at 4 AM last Saturday morning. (Two days ago)

My housemate woke me, (I'm unsure how I managed to sleep through it; he said that on hearing the noise, his initial suspicion was a traffic accident) and I woke up with the bed covered in broken glass, although somehow I was unscathed.

I'm not exactly certain what it was that I did, but I suspect I've managed to fairly grievously offend someone in Sunbury, because that wasn't the first time I've had such an incident occur. Less than a month ago, there was an attempted burglary, and the day after that, the house was set on fire by a driveby throwing of a cluster of fireworks at the roof.

I eventually came to suspect that someone was possibly trying to kill me, and in turn, concluded that leaving the neighbourhood might be a good idea. I have since, and fortunately very rapidly, been able to do so.

I still have a bit of setting up to do, but I will resume regular blog posting within a day or two. To tide of you over, Gundersson is possibly going to be a special guest poster here at the Lair, as well. He doesn't have her own blog as such, but is very much a kindred spirit in terms of his use of Survival and general philosophy with the game, and so I will welcome his material.