Welcome the Nerf Bat Overlords

I can smell the QQ from here, already–but I, for one, welcome our nerf bat weilding overlords.

While other people cry TOO SOON, EXECUTUS, I cry OH THANK GOD.

You see, SiB has been a little…stuck. It’s embarassing, really, becuase we chewed through T11 at a steady pace. In fact I’ve felt that we’re the perfect example of the middle ground guild–we don’t raid a lot (6 hours a week), but we make steady progress when we do. We see content when it’s still “relevent” and “as intended” even if we never really get to doing hard modes.

We were the common denominator, and well, we just weren’t…getting anywhere. It wasn’t like we suddenly sucked or anything, I just started having vanilla era flashbacks to boss progression.  When I was breifly talking about the nerf with Fuzz, my raid leader, we decided that we were just relieved. Our e-peens were not threatened. They’ve been too trampled by lack of progression to feel threatened further.

As I nudged Twitter I heard similar mutterings from other groups.  Yeah, this nerf pre-patch is weird but…well, they were stuck, too.

If you’re looking for why Blizzard is doing this, I honestly think that is why. When your AVERAGE guild–not your “hard core” raiders, not your stacks of fail panackes, but your AVERAGE GUILD–isn’t getting anywhere, even when they are slowly accruing more gear, that’s when you nerf. Considering the burnout trains many people are holding tickets to right now, high levels of raiding frustration are not what you want if your goal is to retain players.

Bring it, Blizz. Just uh, not in my direction, okay?

Hmm.

Yesterday, I dusted off Lyrandre and sent her to go swim her way through some questing.

Today, I hear about PW:S getting nerfed.

Coincidence?  I THINK NOT.

ICC Post 4.0 Commentary, and BM Hunter Musings

ICC Post 4.0

LOL Bug #1: if for some reason you can’t see Gunship, don’t just keep walking assuming it’s a graphics glitch even if everyone else is safely on the boat.  You will fall and die…just ask our tankadin Solt.

LOL Bug #2: Icy blasts and other important Things On Ground To Not Stand in on Sindy’s platform are well nigh impossible to see.  While you can see Sindy’s blasts of icy doom via the swirls (not the circles on the ground, oh no, but the swirls), whatever the little dragons cast is currently invisible.  I apparently died by standing in 3 of them.  Okay!

Which brings me to…
LOL Bug #3: A lot of people are having a hell of a time getting their buffs/debuffs to reappear, even after ditching whatever buff addon they were using.  I wish I could tell you how I fixed mine, but really all I did was flail at settings in Interface and then relog and they magically reappeared.  Relogging is the magic fix for a lot of things right now.  Let me tell you, not seeing buffs and debuffs made Sindy fun.

If you’re just curious about looking at some numbers, our WoL is over here: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/7iooyri0rxyay7co/

We started late and still killed Sindy.  ICC on normal mode, at least, is now /faceroll.  I’d say that it’ a fairly “safe” place to play around on alts-that-might-be-new-mains.

On BM Hunters, In Particular

I did not particularly enjoy huntering last night.  Of course I’m not going to give up on BM hunters that easily, but for now at least I’m going to be focusing on bringing up some other alts…just in case.

I don’t like focus.  It’s seriously disrupted the flow that huntering has been for the past 5+ years.  I’m going to give myself time to adjust, but initial impression is one of BLARGH FUCK THIS.

It’s hard to judge DPS while we’re missing key things (o hai, level 81 skills) but I was lagging massively behind everyone else.

I passionately hate being terrible at something.  Right now, I feel terrible at huntering, and it’s twice as frustrating since I used to be good at it. 

Serpent Sting needs to last longer.  I feel that with its current duration, it’s obnoxious to keep reapplying.  Or maybe I just can’t cope with a focus restrained shot priority, I don’t know.  It always seems like there’s one more shot I need to get in RIGHT NOW and I can’t because I have to steady shot for more focus and then kill command comes up and then oh god where did my focus go and fuck how long as serpent sting been down?

I miss my pew pew moonfire kitty.  The heal seems like a lackluster (and far less useful) replacement for a pet skill I used to enjoy based on looks alone.

Bleh.

Hrm.

I’m finding it hard to write about a game 5 days a week that I only play for 2.

Requests, anybody?

First person who says flowchart gets shot.

A mantra for holy paladins.

Well, a mantra for holy paladins and pretty much every other healer as well.

“I will not check recount.” Repeat it as many times as necessary to let it sink in.

“I will not check recount! I will not check recount!” /shifty eyes /recount show “… FUCK”.

When it comes to healing, being in a constant competition for numbers is sure to get you down, unless you happen to be that person who’s always on top (four for you, Glen Coco). There are just so many factors to healing output to render it much harder to measure than dps numbers. A lot of it has to do simply with class and spec – some have higher thoughput potentials than others, and we all know that disc priest absorbs aren’t often taken into consideration. Another factor is how many healers you have in your group. The more you have, the less healing is needed in general, so those who are faster (due to gear or simple reaction times) are going to have more healing done.

But if you’re competitive like me? Knowing that doesn’t make you feel any better. It makes you want to pout and sulk in the corner because you don’t feel like you’re pulling your full potential. The only solution to keep yourself happy is remember that if you make it through the encounter, that means you’re doing well and pulling your weight. Step away from the healing meters!

(Post inspired by the fact that I have been grumpypants over recount lately, even though I know better! I do wish that there were better ways to evaluate performance.)

AFK: ____

Last night was Beat Our Heads on Rotface night.  It not was an ideal night, as one of our tanks had gotten hacked, another tank was gone for his father’s birthday, etc etc. 

I’ve heard some good reasons to AFK in my time, included “afk earthquake” and “brb, fire”.  I can now add to the list one of our own, that in the very least is….random.

We’re sitting there almost ready to pull Rotface again when Josh answered his phone, then abruptly gets up from the chair and walks away.  I halt the raid and flail in confusion while I figure out what’s going on.  The problem?

Josh’s parents are driving home from picking his brother up at the airport, and they’re going to stop by and say hi!!!!!!

…

…

…

/headdesk

Yeah, that kind of stalled the raid.

So, what are some funny/unexpected reasons YOU have seen for AFKs?

How Blizzard Ruined Shadow Priests

I have an evil evil plot in the works that I did not get to finish last night…TOMORROW, you shall behold my evil.  Until then, I’m just going to talk about how I am a silly magpie, and how Blizzard nearly ruined shadow priesting for me.

You see, I’m not really….girly.  But I do like things that are bright and shiny, so spells like penance and holy nova are Awesome Fun Toys.  In hindsight, paladins have some of the most disappointing spells EVER.  I mean, okay, Sacred Shield can be kind of shiny, but shouldn’t beacon be a BEACON?  You know?  A BEACON OF LIGHT?  A BRIGHT SHINING PILLAR OF LIGHT?

I’ll never forgive Blizzard for failing me in that regard, just as I’ll never forgive them for what they did to my favorite Shadow Priest toy right next to Mind Sear. 

THEY RUINED DISPERSION.  It used to be that you’d turn into a FUN LITTLE BALL OF DARKNESS!!!!!!  Now you’re just…er…more…dark?  What? 

NO, BLIZZARD.

UTTER FAIL.

I can’t be a bouncing ball of inky evilness now!  This has totally ruined the spell and thus ALMOST RUINED SHADOW PRIESTING for me.

Don’t you DARE mess with my mind sear, or I’m going to have to do something drastic like…GO HOLY for my second spec, and we don’t want THAT to happen ever again.

I AM PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE BLIZZARD.

You know…

…it’s really hard to write a Monday post about WoW when I spent all weekend either out and about (The Melting Pot=yum) or playing Dragon Age.  

Here’s to hoping 3.3 hits soon.  Bwuh.  What is there to log on for?  I can’t do too many pug raids because I fear the Cranky Tank’s enrage, and he’s been sick (the sickness debuff shortens his enrage timer by quite a bit) .  Heroics…meh at heroics until patch.  So that leaves…RP!…but that’s on a different server from my primary one, and doesn’t solve the Vanishing GM thing.  Sooooo DAO it was.

(For those of you that are wondering: why yes, I DID chose to play a healery type mage in DAO.  Adorable elf is adorable.)

My hunter now almost outgears my priest.  This fact is disgusting, and highlights some of the issues that come along with, well, playing a disc priest.  I almost said priest, but then I thought of some nice spirit/mp5 laden cloth that dropped recently that had a whopping two rolls for it.  Make it a crit piece and suddenly every damned mage and warlock on your server has magically appeared in your raid to roll on that shit.

Gearing is the one thing I miss about being a holy paladin.  Oh look, spell power plate.  Here you are, Token Holy Pally.  Oh look, more.  Here.  More?  Here!

If Cranky Tank Blogged

I often tell Cranky Tank that he should blog.  Of course, Cranky Tank hates even the word blog, and I recieve much mockery in my own home for my hobby.   Buuuut if Cranky Tank WERE to blog (I am now using the word blog just because I know he hates the word blog even though he never reads my blog) it would sound like this … only a wee bit angrier and with some mention of bodily harm inflicted upon the developers.

I can share in the frustration, somewhat, too.  There’s some tasty stuff in ToC25…

…and some tasty stuff in ToC10…

…so I kind of need to run both…

…and did I mention that I need trophys?  And that I never get trophys, ever, and at this rate never will because I swear the god the number of people rolling never goes down?  Ever? 

Thank god you can get plain ol’ t9 with badges.  God knows I have enough of those, now.

O Hai, Pre-Patch Lull

Ah, it’s that time again.  Raid attendence drops,  people stop paying attention, and all of a sudden we’re wiping on farm content.

Freya defeated us again last night, which has me wanting to cry in both sadness and anger.  It’s Freya, for fuck’s sake.  In Ulduar.  She’s a keeper that we used to be able to down regularly.   I don’t know where everyone’s head was, but if the trash wipes didn’t clue me in, a Freya pull by someone distracted by the TV should have.  I want to kill Yoggy, people.  :(

It’s a struggle for me, internally.  I’m telling myself that it’s just a natural lull, the kind that BoO has survived over and over.   Then there’s the part of my brain that is screaming YOU ARE THE MOST TERRIBLE GM EVER, and I hate that part.  I’m flailing at my support network on a regular basis (I love you guys).

I GM’d once before, in BC.  We had a cozy little group of friends, barely enough to scrape together a Kara.  Then one day my co-GM and one of our precious healers transferred off server without warning, and I’m afraid I was rather gutted after that and the guild slowly dwindled away.  Gwuh.  Will not repeat.

I’ve got an officer who is perpetually MIA…no, actually, two officers who are perpeutally MIA, though one of them at least occassionaly shows up and leads an off night raid.   Cranky Tank is on that wavering age of burn out and /game quit…again.  Of the other three officers, one is the former GM and lord knows where his mind is…and the other two are also sort of wavering uncertainly in burn out/bored land.  In other words, I’m really afraid to lean on anybody, and the number of people I feel I can count on is smaller than our number of officers.

Of course this just means that I’ll actually be leaning on the people who currently keep me raiding, officer or not.  Myss.  Oasic.  Celaeno.  Pyxy.  Kyr.  Rivyn.  Atropus.  Frost.  All of you who joke around and generally make my nights amusing.  

I have a couple of angry rants saved up, but I’m almost afraid to voice them.  Perhaps tomorrow will be Pull Your Head Out Of Your Asses Lecture Day, where I talk about things like continuing to stare at the TV and not the computer when your GM on vent is going “EVERYONE BACK UP BACK UP BACK OH GOD THE BOSS PULLED” is pretty damn fail.

To cap the fail, I missed taming Loque by like…a minute.  Then I hopped on my warrior and found Skoll’s corpse.  Bwuh.  Sad BM hunter is sad. /pokemons