Kluptomania's Kluptomentum

Forced to Collect

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Mounts and companions collected and purchased for the sake of having them. Tell that to the creepy goblin Cupid pet from the Love Day celebrations going on. That thing is so ugly and just...creepy!

Alas, my concerns are about the Big Pink Lovebird that which is the new addition to our festivities and stables. A giant pink strider, which at one point in time only hunters could have obtained as real "live" companions.

My warrior is doing a great job as being the "official farmer of stuff" for me, and he is about 150 tokens short from purchasing this pink monstrosity, for the sake of purchasing it.

Of course my hunter will be the one to receive it and add it to his stable slot, but so what? Will I ever use this odd pink ground mount? Perhaps for giggles, but otherwise it'll take a back-seat to the drakes as always, however my mount count will go up by +1 and perhaps will aid me in "accomplishing" a future "achievement" in MoP which requires us to collect 200 mounts.

Forced to collect, against our will!

Forever-A-Tank

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:08:00 +0000

Bruny reporting in! My weapon collection is almost complete, with the inclusion of Souldrinker that fell out of Deathwing's bum, my warrior purpose has been fulfilled (to obtain many many melee weapons).

The ever elusive Gurthalak still evades my grasp (despite seeing THREE drop on my priest), and once one of my three melee-able toons obtain it I will be done the game. Though now I am having second thoughts that I might just eliminate Gurthalak from my list, as I've found playing as a tank more fun than melee. Then again my DK does use 2H for tanking....bah!!

But anyhow, my warrior. Tanking. Yes. It's fun and visceral and angry! Despite not having a shield slam, or death grip a warrior makes up for the lack of ranged-savers (save for heroic throw or whatever it's called) by being absolutely mobile with charges and leaps and aoe's!

Rend, and thunderclap. It's so simple and effective, spread your rends, then you're good to go to press whatever you want since threat is no longer an issue in the world of tanking. With all the explosions and earth cracking, I find that the warrior has one of the best visual feedbacks of all the tanks and also less hypnotizing than a paladin. Don't get me wrong a paladin is fun to tank with as well but after a while you end up zoning out just waiting for your three holy powers.

But anyways, the 4th Main has been chosen!

True Form

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:46:00 +0000

This is Turby in his true form, a Wyrm-stalker, and as such he waits late at night outside these fierce beasts' lair and by using his Eagle Eye ability.....stalks the dragons within!

Turby the Stalker

Stop Forcing My Alts to do Holiday Events!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Yeah I'm talking about YOU Lunar lantern pet and Swift Lovebird! I've played the meta-game two or three times already and now you want me to grind tokens for these "brand new" collector's items all over again?

After what was done to the Sprite Darter Hatchling, I had to grasp every opportunity to obtain the "easily obtainable" obtainables such as Pebbles and the 2nd Jouster, Argent Tourney pets/mounts.

Now we have "new" collector's items which are great for new players, because for them, this event starts off with many more collectibles! I know the new items are BOE and all but...I need FOUR of each, which means I'll have to send some non-important alts out to get some free achieves to donate their earnings! Speaking of which I've been procrastinating doing any Lunar elder hunting since the event started...perhaps I shall start....one day....

Bruny and the Magical 372

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:36:00 +0000

My angry little warrior has it good with the gearing game, he only had to do one single "regular" heroic before stepping foot into the "easy" (hout of twilight) heroics. On top of that, he's found many upgrades including off-spec pieces from just having to do 4.5 of the normal heroics (got throw into a half finished WOE).

My two other melee alts are seething in bitter hate towards my warrior. Why? Well, let's just take a look:

First End Time: Tauren Chieftan's axe is won. First run. My DK has been complaining forever about the lack of 378 upgrades. Oh well, my warrior has now fulfilled his purpose!

First HoT: The carapace shield drops. Tank already has it, I win it. My paladin has been bitching about this shield for the lack of -any- shield drops. Oh well, my warrior has now replaced my paladin as tank. (I also won an offspec tanking one-hander in WOE as well)

LFR Fun: My first LFR experience on my warrior didn't go as well as I had expected. So apparently we can now queue for Madness without having the first four bosses down? And apparently the raid finder automatically ports you into the instance without having to click "accept"?

My plan was to queue for LFR, which had a 12 minute wait for DPS and decided to go take a shower and most likely the queue would be ready when I was done. I go do my thing, come back and find that my surroundings have changed and my corpse is now upon Ysera's platform while 24 strangers are off on Alex's platform. Wait what? I was going to leave to show that I wouldn't roll on anything that dropped cause I was essentially GONE for 60% of the fight, but a nice druid battle-ressed me on his way to the last platform and luckily no melee items dropped, because as the Law states, I would have won everything for my 2.3% damage contribution.

Bruny the Magical Warrior

End Game: The World is at my Limited Fingertips

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:36:00 +0000

Bruny is finally level 85! I accomplished a simple goal that accompanied my angry little warrior's levelling progress, and that was to fully do the Deepholm quests and get noticed by Therazane. Upon finally defeating Lorthuna I was sitting at level 84, 90% to ding or about 1M experience to go. I finished it off by doing the first few quests of Uldum, which also opened up the Uldum portal to boot.

Now that I am 85, I have "so much" opened to me. Regular heroics, HoT faceroll heroics, T11 and T12 raids, LFR just around the corner, and many transmog soloing runs. My intention now is to run enough regular heroics until I have acquired enough JP to buy one new piece of gear, and hopefully by then I would have picked up enough upgrades along the way to not suck in the HoT heroics. It'd be really nice to see fights that last more than 30 seconds to fully test out the potential of Fury dps!

I shall report back, not that anyone cares!

Finally a New Look!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:10:00 +0000

And...Ta-da! As I have promised many many months ago to renew my banner ..it is done!

*Bow down before my amazing MS Paint skills*

You are now graced with the images of Truny, Turby, and Turny from left to right in all of their current glory. Oh no reader, each of their appearances has a special meaning behind them!

*Makes some shit up real fast*

Truny: Ahh my long forgotten Warlock, my favourite all the way up until the adolescence of T11. You can see her donning her famous every-warlock-wears-this-crap tier with her current T13 tentacle face helm, which I adore. She is backed by the Dark Portal itself, as I thought to myself what is the most demony thing I could think of (and it was close to the city portals...)

Turby + Puppy: Turby and Puppy are models for nostalgia. Turby poses in his transmogged noob gear with his very first and oldest Devilsaur and he dons his invisible "Explorer" title. Puppy has tanked the Lich King amongst other heroic and suicidal jiggery (yes, that is a word though I'm probably using it in the wrong context bahaha).

Turny: Turny is my famous Restless Tree and he is ANGRY. He has donned his Tree of Life form and, while standing strong atop the World Tree roars across the cosmos in a furious rage lined with the tiniest bit of sadness that his form only lasts for 30 seconds.

There Shall be a Fourth

I have two toons vying for the spot of "Fourth Main" right now and that is my warrior or deathknight. As I say time and time and time again, melee are silly, but I have had great fun blood tanking and also tanking in general. In terms of DPSing, Fury seems a bit more on the ret side of whack-a-mole proccy than the button spammy frost DKS...so we shall see. And also it boils down to who looks better in transmog.

Truny the New Look Same BS

Wtf Jedoga?

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:02:00 +0000

So this morning I walked into my kitchen to pack my breakfast and lunch for work and all of a sudden out of nowhere I heard:

"These are SACRED halls!"

Jedoga Shadowseeker, wtf are you doing in my kitchen??

LFR Progress - Collect ALL The Loot!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:05:00 +0000

How many weeks has patch 4.3 been out? About ten? LFR was and is all about accessible raiding and oh boy did all my alts feel the love, especially my healers!

I shall reiterate here that LFR works great with my broken schedule and our guild's once a week raid times (and one session of "real" stuff a week is good enough for me).

I'm going to take a look at each of my toons and see:

1. How many LFR bosses they have downed. (# In boss order)
2. How much loot they have hoarded into their greedy greedy vaults.

Turby - Hunter
1. (5,6,5,5,7,6,6,6) for a total of 46. Poor Ultraxion.
2. Helm, Chest, Gloves, Legs, Trinket, Kiril, Vishanka

Can't complain here, I'm pretty much "done" the game save for our regular DS runs.

Truny - Warlock
1. (5,5,5,5,4,3,3,5) for a total of 35.
2. Helm, Shoulders, Gloves, Legs, Trinket, Bracers

Still need to get super lucky with a weapon drop! And perhaps finishing off the T13 4P!

Turny - Druid
1. (5,4,7,8,3,3,4,4) for a total of 38. I stopped queueing for DW cause I have all the weapons. And I tend to queue for Hagara for easy VP.
2. Helm, Gloves, Heal Trinket, Ti'tahk, Maw of the Dragonlord

Since I have both the cool weapons useable by my druid I have stopped queueing into LFR despite not having any tier gear. My reasoning is that the druid T4 bonus is kinda crappy. The extended hots are kinda nice but our heals USED to last even longer anyways. Though the quick queues are super awesome and this is a great "live" training dummy to practise boomkining.

Klupty - DK
1. (2,2,2,2,2,2,3,5) for a total of 20.
2. DPS Bracers. (Leg tier given away, Soulsipper given away).

Can you tell I dont like playing my DK but I like playing it at the same time? It's totally not worth having to play melee and I have yet to win Soulsipper/Gurthalak after that one miracle win. Klupty tends to have horrible luck, and he tends to be in the LFR Law groups where the afk people win everything (which doesn't matter on my other toons cause being ranged is FUN!) I have also decided to level a Fury warrior, which I find more fun than frost to go crazy on Melee weapons.

Truby - Paladin
1. (1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2) for a total of 12.
2. Shoulders, Str Trinket, Dps Ring

Not bad for having only been there about 1.5 times. I'm still stuck as Ret, too lazy to respec to holy, but blah I already have a druid heals. Watch, if I queue in again I'll end up winning stuff that I don't even want to use (then why roll need??)

Husbrus - Priest
1. (1,1,2,3,0,0,0,2) for a total of 9.
2. Robe, Heal Trinket (Ti'tahk given away)

Screw my priest, druid heals RULES! *Explosion of glitter and rainbows*

Grand Total
1. 160 Boss Kills or 20 full raid runs!
2. 24 item drops or a 15% success rate!

This compared to my 12 total boss kills in regular DS and 0 drops and a couple epic gems and some green gems. See the difference?

So in conclusion, druids rule!!

Gaming Within Our Means: The Loot Roll System

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

On upgrades and progression, on the need/greed loot system, and about entitlement and what meaning we find in each of these terms.

The need/greed system is fairly common in MMOs and it presents itself as the ideal channel to distribute loot amongst group members. Say a Tanking Shield of Tank Only Tanking drops, and what happens is a loot window pops up on everyone's screen and they can either need the item, greed the item, or pass, with need being the highest priority.

This is where I would like to stop time itself and analyze the situation further in a multi-layered multi-faceted abstract.

The Loot Itself

The shield. Currently only the tank can use it in his main spec so technically he should be the only one to "need it. Ok

Need vs Greed

Now we come to the little roll window. I don't actually like the way need/greed works, I would rather take the current LFR loot rules a step further and that is by keeping the class restrictions on gear, keeping the roll bonus, but also removing the concept of "needing or greeding".

In real life, how often do we actually "need" anything other than the very very basics of food, clothing, shelter, and perhaps a stable income and the ability to maintain all this? Do we really need to buy an $80,000 car over a $50,000 car? It's all for show. I have taken on the stance of living BELOW my means as a stance against the rampant consumerism and dwindling of real values.

Anyhow, in game, do we really NEED an extra 0.75% mitigation? Will it make or break an encounter that is no longer designed to punish one who is not completely min/maxed? So no, the tank probably doesn't NEED the extra 2% reduction in damage and 1% block chance. It makes the healer's life easier but when was the last time you ran out of mana save for the accidental pull of 4 difficult trash mobs and a boss? Our reliance on gear is pretty much coded into the game, until we reach the absolute threshold of not being able to tank/dps/heal through the content is probably when we "need" an upgrade.

Completing tier sets is also not an argument, you were doing fine with your 3P T13, but do you NEED to have 4P? It would be very very very nice to have a 4P bonus (for most classes anyways), but your life doesn't absolutely depend on the fact that you have an internal bloodlust or your Soulburn finally gets some use (though with that being a class fix coded into gear...that's another story).

So back to the need/greed system. I say we change it to a "roll/pass" mechanic (I've seen this somewhere, don't remember where, was it Lotro?) and the game internally does all of the class restrictions and role bonuses in the background. Everyone can "roll", but if a hunter rolls on a BOP shield the game will secretly put their roll to 0. Over time, people will realize that only certain classes tend to win certain items. We get to retain our "entitlement" that is being able to roll but the "Gods of Fairness", aka smart coding makes sure the right people get the right items. If everyone defaults to nil, then a random person will get it for vendor trash.

Progression

Having said all that, this is still a game and a game without progression isn't that much fun. Imagine having to quest through Vash'jir because your ilvl 264 gear was "good enough". Receiving an upgrade feels good, your character "progresses" in the shallowest of sense; your throughput goes up by 1% and it feels nice. This answers the argument of "casuals don't need raid gear to do dailies", well you probably don't really need to maximize every single slot that you have for raiding (unless if you are perhaps doing heroic modes on the SECOND week of release).

Another facet of progression could be how higher level gear tends to look better than quest greens. I believe this scenario is exacerbated in the Northrend levelling scene. Remember what you would look like as a fresh level 80? You would have an SM cowl, a wooden club, metal if you are lucky and every other slot was some sort of drab dull brown. Transmog did a great job in solving this, as can be seen with my warrior changing his quest green sword into an epic Ulduar sword of cosmic goodness.

Have you ever been in the situation where an "upgrade" drops but it looks like it could be 1% better or worse than your current item and you are sitting there doing internal calculations of int vs crit over the lost mastery which is 0.5% of your spellpower, but if you cast 0.04% faster with an additional 15 int then your total throughput could potentially go up by 0.7% in a standalone fight then you think of high movement fights and so on and so forth? And all this time you are not sure if you "need" the trinket or not, most likely you don't need it as it won't astronomically propel your performance into the cosmos, but what if there was just a roll option, if you win then good, if not, then too bad so sad. This is the type of situation I am talking about, where we don't really NEED something and pressing the "need" button is the only way to obtain said item to test it out despite the lack of actual need.

What Will Come of LFR

The current loot-mania going on in LFR is a double edged spell dagger. The class restrictions and bonuses inhibit people from stealing gear and let's them roll "need" on anything that they can. This could potentially get people used to the "just roll" aspect of what I propose, or it might groom people to feel entitled to everything because they can simply click need on everything that's available and walk away without considering the group and their fellow raider's own gear progression. We've seen people rolling on items, taking them hostage for future trade collateral, but we've also seen people winning gear and passing it on to more deserving folk...who probably don't actually "need" the gear (but upgrades are fun). Just saying.

So next time you click need on something, think of it as not a "need" button but a "First World Problem: I would like this item to progress my character for the name of fun" button. Then trade it to someone who wants it even more than you because you, as a wizard, should know better.

Truny the Needful

LFR: Broken Law

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:55:00 +0000

After re-expressing my dismay for my favourite demonology spec I had decided to go home and try out my once long-term spec of destruction. I had a good feeling for destruction because I saw a warlock who was only 10 ilvls higher than my hunter out dps him on Alizabel, which got me thinking that warlocks are still a force to be reckoned with!

I went in, respecced, reglyphed and flew to the training dummy. Everything felt the same save for the inclusion of corruption and having to maintain the ISF buff that we've been hearing about. Then I queued into LFR.

I did alright on Ultraxion (though this was before I realized I didn't use my Imp glyph seeing how strong his fireballs hit for) and nothing useful dropped, which is alright.

Next fight was Lootship 2.0 and two of the tier helms dropped. I automatically scrolled down to the lowest pally/priest heal/dps and secretly congratulated them and lo and behold they won. HOWEVER, I also won! I think the law gets broken when there is a certain limit to how many people are actually rolling, as I was pretty much the only caster in there save for a couple elemental shamans.

Spine of Deathwing is always entertaining, in that I pretty much stand around and do nothing except lightly attack the bloods if they live long enough and come back when deathwing's tendon becomes exposed. Now I'm not sure how the rule worked for this fight, since I won the "perpetual 780 INT" trinket. I did very little, only killing the add when it was fully stacked and killing the tendon, and helping on bloods. My overall damage was low,(I know the game doesn't know our dps but shush) but I was doing everything "correctly", though I was "inactive" for most of the fight, cause really there's nothing to do save for the 2 gcds you can get in on bloods. Perhaps again I was the only caster?

Anyhow, I am very happy with my Tentacle Face helmet, which totally clashes with my set!

Truny the Law Breaker

Boycott on the Warlock

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:37:00 +0000

It's quite sad seeing this blog shift slowly from a Demonology blog to a general Gaggle of Alts haven, but I think I know why I've been straying away from my warlock over the months.

Remember the whole Fel Armor fiasco, where it was changed to no longer heal us passively? I got over that. It is because of our demons! I still fancy the glory days when we could proudly bring our felguard into single target encounters and not even bat an eyelash err eye lid..uhh twitch something in the general eye area towards our other demons save for our blueberry for emergency shields. Nowadays it's all about demon juggling and hey I signed up to be a warlock, not a juggler! The demon soul of our spec for our "pet" pretty much goes unused in favour of a different pet for a different spec which trumps our "supposed" pet. Did that make sense? Warlocks would get it.

Am I sounding too entitled, that I didn't get my way? Maybe. Perhaps the mechanics of how we summon demons could be refined. Soul shards were pretty unimpressive. Sure it opened up 36 bag slots for me, but when do I really ever use it other than to re-summon or summon a demon or use it to power up my seed of corruptions two times in an entire dungeon? If we truly are the masters of demons, let us either have two out at a time, or perhaps we summon them out instantly off the GCD, much like changing presences/stances.

Don't get me wrong I am quite attached to my felpuppy, he serves me well but everytime I use my one viable cooldown I feel a bit ripped off that I am using it to power up my two dots rather than my nuking capabilities as per the spec.

Demonology was the spec in which I started raiding and became an "actual" "raider" as in ICC. Sure this was 6 years later than most people and isn't a "legit" argument since I didn't get to see the AQ gates, but that's all I have to work with.

And even if you don't min/max, the difference between the 2 pets from what my last testing back in T12 was 3-4 THOUSAND dps. Just for switching pets, nothing special.

Speaking of which oh god why am I bolded and italicized....oh well, speaking of raiding I have thought of a better post so goodbye!

Truny the Italicized

Warrior on the Way

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:20:00 +0000

His name is Bruny. Yes, m character names are unique and my propensity for nameage is beyond your wildest imagination.

As is the sad and dreary story of all my sub-alts, Bruny grew up as a single role warrior until he hit his Outlands Wall. I learned the intricacies of tanking and positioning with this toon, and the fact that being in absolute melee range was a requirement for success. This is opposed to my druid tank who I had at max level who would just spam swipe and maul in the Wrathful days.

Bruny sat at level 65 for about a year being my banker/storage alt. Melee was totally silly. He would tank the occasional random BC dungeon but other than that he was rather sheltered, never even seen the sky in Nagrand.

Then of course transmog came along and I needed a character who can equip all the pretty items and actually put them to good use and with my amazing deduction skills it came down to my warrior. The problem was, now I needed to level him and his off-spec was focused in the Arms tree. Dilemma time! I had to choose between arms or fury, blade-storm or titan's grip. I chose titan's grip. To hold more transmogged weapons.

Dont' look at me like that!

Again, I had tried out fury back in the mid 60s and for those who have played fury you'll probably be able to relate with my frustration when things died so fast I couldn't even get off enough hits to generate rage! I was tempted to stay arms with it's very consistent damage and rotation, however I stuck with fury and I am enjoying it. I see my warrior as very angry all the time, as am I!

Bruny is now 82 and smashing his way through Deepholm. He will be the 2nd toon in which I will actually quest straight through to the end without losing focus and wandering off once I ding 83. The benefit of course are the shoulder enchants from Therazane and Co.

So yeah, that's it.

Bruny the Warrior

Basic Laws of LFR

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:34:00 +0000

Don't mind me I am just here to vent my bitterness for this week's LFR Adventures.

As LFR is in a different realm than "normal" raiding, I will place it in the same dimension as LFD and this means anonymity and also the Loot Laws take effect.

The general rule is: The lower your performance relative to others, the higher chance of you winning items that you are not able to utilize properly. I have come to the point of not even looking in my bags after rolling for items but rather I would first check my little recount box and immediately scroll down to the bottom to see which people are at the bottom of the dps list. (I keep it scrolled down when I'm on my Pally sadly). Usually the bottom 4 will have won everything. Then I will tab over to the healing list and look at who was afk healing, and they usually win all the stuff, most likely for an offspec at that.

Here are just some of my personal experiences with this law taking effect. And the exceptions to prove just how crazy I am.

1. Deathwing. Warrior. 16th place in DPS. Wins both Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps. He did 19k.
2. Deathwing. I rolled the highest roll for Souldrinker, however someone else tied me. Of course, they won since they did less damage than my ret paladin.
3. Deathwing. I was Feral Druid spec on Deathwing, Ti'tahk drops, I roll. I am specced for tanking, not kitty I was #13 on dps. Guess who won? I did. (I kept it and used it as boomkin for a while)
4. My hunter's chest, arms, ring, trinket, and weapon pieces were not actually won by me but my other hunter friend who does significantly less damage than me won them all for me. He usually ranked 10-14.

Exceptions.

Now of course I am just being bitter for not winning EVERYTHING EVERY time I am one of my many toons but the rule tends to hold true for low performers. However there's always the scary exceptions and those always feel awesome.

1. First time in LFR I won both my Helm and Legs. Not exactly which 2 but 2P T13 on one boss. However this was in the glory weeks when LFR was fresh and new and bitter-free.
2. I won Souldrinker on my DK but gave it away because DPS DK is silly.
3. I won Maw of the Dragonlord on my druid and he's using it to good effect even right now.
4. My priest won Ti'tahk Steps of Time yesterday but I gave it away as I never play my priest and Shadow is just silly.

What Am I Really Trying to Say?

LFR is a great tool, especially for people like me who have many toons and only do "real" raiding once a week on one toon and even then that once a week is tentative due to real life schedules trumping sitting in front of Deathwing's minions. Also it looks like the best way to win loot is to underperform...is Blizzard trying to tell us something here?

Ignore the Bitter

Alt Updates 2012!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Wow I haven't done one of these since the days of Gearscore *Shudder*.

The new gs of today is of course ilvl, and I'd have to say it's been a fairly good indicator of what is or is not an upgrade, a higher ilvl, probably better, reforge stats, boom!

I like to use this comparison amongst all my toons and alts as a really quick way to gauge their "progression". So enough talk, let's take a look at my six mains and their "equipped" levels. (Of course I logged out on half of them in their 2nd spec....)

1. Turby - Hunter: 387
2. Turny - Druid 383
3. Truby - Paladin 381 (What the heck how did my pally catch up to everyone in a single week?)
4. Truny - Warlock 380 (What happened to my warlock???)
5. Klupty - DK 379 (I've been playing him the most, but he's also been seeing 0 upgrades)
6. Husbrus - Priest 372 (I pretty much stopp

Hmm while we're here let's take a look at their achievement points!

1. Turby - 9630
2. Truny - 6985
3. Turny - 4445
4. Klupty - 2770
5. Husbrus - 2480
6. Truby - 2210

Well that was boring for you to read, but this provides me with a snapshop of today! Laters!

"FIxing" Hunter DPS 4.3.2

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:49:00 +0000

As we finish rejoicing in the slight DPS buffs coming to us in 4.3.2, I've decided that perhaps hunters need an even better edge against people with Tarecgosa. It is true that I have found it ridiculous that someone who happened to have grinded out a staff for 6 months could even come close to my damage! It's not fair! (Though in all fairness this has only happened twice, and I was in reg FL gear and they were in full heroic, but it's those two times I will never forget the time I LOST!)

Practical Recommendations (Uh huh)

1. Pet Pets. Our pets have been our fierce and loyal companions since the beginning of time, for years on end. Over the duration of their arduous journey of being off-tanks or support, they have developed their own sagely bestial skills. Our pets are now able to command sub-ordimate pets. They are the general, and they can now recruit a lieutenant. The lieutenant pet mirrors our pets abilities however only does 75% of their damage. This should be fair. Currently my BM pet does about 12K in DS. An addition 8k should give us an edge on anyone with Tarecgosa.

2. Two active pets. Think Shaman's ghost wolf mechanics. The 2nd pet would do 75% of the first pet and would respond to kill command. It isn't too hard to manage two pets.

What the Actual Changes Were

Oh yes, the actual changes were....a 35% to the AP bonus to AotH, Black Arrow ticks every 2 sec instead of 3, which is great since I've found firing it felt pretty useless. And the most important change, which will persuade me to use SV more is the Lock n Load dilemma that we've had for the past few months. Arcane shot will no longer be part of lock n load nor will it eat up it's effect. This is a great change since everytime LnL procced my pacing would be thrown off since naturally after an ES I would automatically AS to utilize every single second of a fight, however because it would eat LnL I would either have to switch to CS or wait depending on movement.

So when this patch hits I shall report back! Right now I'll be sticking to BM!

Turby the Hunter

Truby the Ret Paladin: Reporting In

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Hey wait one minute, we thought you had quit your ret pally and switched to your arms warrior for the time being?

Well, yeah..I kind of did. Bruny the warrior is 69 and is sitting around patiently waiting to be ran through each of the Northrend dungeons in succession hoping to speed level to 80 in the same manner as my rogue. However, I got bored and decided to queue as a tank on my paladin to get the Sack of Sometimes Has a Pet/Mount/Flask/Gem and I ended up in End Time and won a 378 axe. Yes, the axe that my DK has been crying about never even seeing my paladin wins it as an offspec.

So hence my upgrade from a 316 weapon to a 378 weapon convinced me to finish up the 5-7th bosses of the LFR DS. (I actually put an enchant on it this time).

I did fairly "bad" on Ultraxion, I pushed just over 15k, which I GUESS is okay considering all I had that was DPS was my shoes/bracers/weapon, I had no trinkets whatsoever. Actually now that I think of it that initial group was bad, I was 10th in damage with my pure tank gear!

The group removed the lowest performers, the ones doing 10k (come on, if even I can do 15k...) and we one shotted the subsequent bosses.

Now as the loot rules go, as predetermined by the Karma Gods, the poorer your performance the higher chance you have at winning rolls. So it seems. I managed to win a ring, and also from what I reckon one of the BiS non-heroic trinkets. Gah! At least the T13 shoulders that I wasted now have "friends in higher places" now. However, I will not stop until I have replaced my entire tanking set since I think I have settled in onto the pace of the ret-ness.

This is probably the ONE class where I feel I need an addon to help me keep track of buffs. The two most important ones are:

1. Inquisition
2. Divine Purpose

I need to know exactly how long my Inquisition buff is, since it will buff my censure, which is a large part of my damage (the other holy abilities are meh) and also when to refresh it and also to prepare to refresh it.

Then there is our "free ability" procced from Divine Purpose. Keeping track of Inquisition and knowing when this puppy procs lets me know if I should use it on Inq or if I will just TV it out for massive damage (well not really yet). Luckily my fancy schmany UI came with some interesting aura/power trackers that I never ever used and turned 'em on!

I can see the T13 2P bonus, where Judgement generates a HP as a very very useful set bonus, even though Judgement does wet ribbon damage, it's something to look forward to as it generates our main resource. Now that I think of it this was probably added in as a last minute "fix" to cover up how sloppy the class is rather than a legitimate "tier bonus" if you get my drift. Perhaps in the future there is a 2nd ability that generates HP alongside CS. Oh well.

I shall report back after more testing. (See, takes only 15 minutes to test a character out in PVE...)

Truby the Ret

Why Did I Change to Clunky Ret?

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:50:00 +0000

I apologize reader, I lied. In the name of Vanity, and for the sake of having more toons to transmog pretty two handed weapons, I dropped my paladin's holy spec into...yes you guessed it: Clunk, er retribution! Now I am a fast learner just like you, I read my talents carefully, picked out what wasn't-the-PVP-ones, and went and bought myself an ilvl 316 two hander and queued up to test shit out.

You see, I am from wrath, I've had my paladin since wrath and I have fond memories of shiny pretty ownage coming from the blades of ret paladins still engraved in my mind. (Though I pretty much tanked from level 20-85). These were the days when Divine Storm was still part of the single target rotation. As I finished respeccing I was really excited to use divine storm, however.... seeing my crusader strike cd go off at the same time as divine storm, I thought "Oh crap, they made it AOE, what am I supposed to push??".

Now reader, just like you I have a good grasp of most classes and how each of them feels, and most of them are designed to be fairly fluid. From what I understand, ret paladins need to keep up something called Inquisition, which increases all holy damage done for a period of time, and to keep this up at all times. Then we use our "button presses" and cooldowns as we see fit.

I feel that our abilities are really 2004 other than Templar's Verdict. What's in our "rotation"? Well from what I see we have (not in priority i'll explain why (I always tend to list things in priority)):

1. Crusader's Strike (CS)
2. Judgement
3. Art of War Exorcism
4. Holy Wrath
5. Hammer of Wrath (During Wings)
6. Templar's Verdict (TV)

Those are not in order, because I feel that other than CS and TV, all the other abilities are useless filler. Heck, I even feel that CS is a pretty useless ability until they revamped it a little bit and forced us to accept it. I mean really, Judgement? I thought we just used that to regain mana, it does crap damage! The art of war procs are always nice, since there tends to be periods of time with absolutely nothing to do. Holy wrath is funny as well, it doesn't hit hard but it's something to press during all the downtime. As a blade swinging warrior, er paladin, you'd think that other than CS we would have the knowledge of another attack? Perhaps something like Righteous Holy Blade Wrath Justice...a surge of holy power that does 230% weapon damage on a 4 second cooldown. Just something else to press. (And totally disable its use in PVP, no one cares about PVP. Well I don't, which means no one!)

Ideally I think, we want to hit TV with 3 Holy Power (HP), and it seems the only way to generate holy power is through CS. So I assume I want a lot of haste to bring the cooldown down? The totally random procs of this class are kinda nice, though really random. What is that one talent called.....Divine Purpose! It makes most of our abilities have a chance to proc a free 3 holy powered ability, which is usually TV. Though it's totally random and sometimes procs when other procs are up or doesn't proc and you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

But anyhow, I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore. I did mange to pull off 10-12k in my tanking gear and a 316 weapon, however it wasn't very enjoyable. Actually for those fights I had totally forgot about using Inquisition, so those numbers might have been higher. However, it didn't "feel" like I pushed out those numbers, it felt...clunky. I guess they didn't want pallies to feel like DKs, smooth, with runes and strikes that felt like strikes and felt significant, and runic power dumps. So simple.

IDEA: Ok here's a wild idea. We all know how PROTECTION pallies feel like right? The cooldowns are lined up, abilities are smooth and fluid...why not...just...copy that? Though the damage would probably have to be reduced on CS and TV. The thing with prot is, we gradually build up HP and offload it with our shield slam, ideally in ret, we'd build up HP and use TV...though in a less clunky manner?

You see, regardless of what class I play I like having to press a button every GCD, guaranteed. Remember, if you're not spamming your next button you're doing it wrong! Do the Ten Second Test, in 10 seconds or roughly 7 GCDs I tend to have press my buttons about 50 times. With Ret, it's more like...5 times. WHAT??

Luckily this is only my alt to the 6th degree, and Prot is still my go-to spec to feel fluid and effective. I do feel the pain of you guys who are Ret Mains to have to endure such...clunkity clunk.

Y'know what, I'll probably switch back to Holy (but I wasted a t13 shoulder token on my ret gear....)...and get my warrior up, arms is fun, and prot warrior tanking is also fun! I shall report back of the great fun on my warrior!

Yay for the fun!

Truby the Clunker

Collect ALL The Weapons!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Hellooo I'm back! I'd just like to report some non-important observations and that is I think that LFR has calmed down a whole lot. I think us humans have gotten in the groove and we are well into our 3rd predicted phase of LFR.

Phases?

Well yes, remember?

Phase 1: On the day of release, Firelands geared humans were the only ones capable of entering LFR. There would have been some rather smooth runs starting at day 1.

Phase 2: The aforementioned humans become bored and stop doing LFR for a while and focus on regular DS, or SWTOR (I am guilty of this). Runs are a bit messy, people using blue PVP gear to cheat their way into the queue expecting everyone else to know what to do however everyone does not know what to do and the cess pool of hate begins to boil. Coming back into LFR during this phase is painful.

Phase 3: Most people get the gist of LFR and now we get the Ultra Creepy Quiet runs with relatively friendly or complacent humans.

Anyhow, none of that was important. As we all know, Deathwing's magical elementium piece that he leaves behind contains a potential NINE special weapons:

A Rogue/Shaman Axe
A Rogue Dagger
A Hunter/Druid Polearm
A Healer Mace
A Caster Staff
A Caster Dagger
A Melee Two Handed Sword
A One Handed Tanking Sword
A Hunter Bow

And other than the axe/melee dagger, my new goal is to obtain the other 7 before Panda Land arrives!

Is this possible? With everyone rolling like mad especially at Madness? Well fear not for I have already obtained three of these, the Viagra Polearm, the healing mace, and also the Tick Toc Time staff! The next items on the list in priority are possibly the two handed sword for my poor DK tank who will never ever be able to find a 378 upgrade, then perhaps the bow, then perhaps my paladin when she is sturdy enough to queue as a tank (then again I did okay heals with my ACTUAL 355 gear score), and last the poison dagger for my warlock if I ever play her again.

Then, quit the game!

Reminisce - Lightning Nova

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Most new players will have no idea what I am talking about now right? There could be a chance in the revamped Northrend levelling process that a player won't even get to see Halls of Lightning pop up in their instant dungeon-finder.

I was a relatively "new" player to wow, only having started several weeks after the WotLK release and hype.

Loken was serious business before T8s came rolling out. Before non-raiders like me could even obtain "real" epics (ilvl 213s were serious business), this was when we had to position properly due to his electric aura pulsing and his deadly Lightning Nova. This separated the goods from the bads and also holds a certain amount of nostalgia in it.

With our gear being inflated every expansion, it allows us to go and visit old content and clear it most of the time solo if you are a sturdy class or a hunter. It's nice but you never get to "experience" it when it was hard. Does anyone here remember Loken taking MORE than 30 seconds to kill? Does anyone even know that standing farther away means taking more of his pulse, and standing closer means less but it means you have to be quicker to run away?

This is a sad. We run "old content", and blast through 'em but I have not personally felt this same nostalgic difficulty of the past. Say for example Teron Gorefiend, I don't even know what his phases are if any. The only boss in which I HAVE seen all the phases was Illidan back at pre Ulduar level 80 with a small group. He actually turned into a demon and started killing people off and we had to use a warlock tank or something or other.

But anyways, remember the Lightning Nova!

And....THERE IS ONLY PAWAHH!!

Traitor to the Horde

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Bah it's not like anyone reads this anyways! This is going to be a Star Wars post!!

I joined this game in secret about a week and a half back and I am having a blast on my Republic Vanguard Turby. I've had a small revelation with this game, and yes I call it a game...well, it feels like..a game! Hear me out, having been on Azeroth for so many years WoW began to feel more like a job, chores rather than a "game". For a good time it was pretty much a meta-game, where we played by the Achievements. Mount collecting, pet collecting, achievement hunting. It was just our character in a world in which we had exhausted 99% of the content already just sitting around doing nothing.

SWTOR feels like a game. Each class has a unique story, rather than just having different race starting zones where all Undead go to one spot and so on and so forth. Imagine your warlock starting off in a small cult and then slowly working her way up to malevolence and grandeur. It wouldn't follow the WOW storyline but it could definitely flow in conjunction with it. Aka story quests and sidequests and zone quests.

I guess since I'm still at the levelling stage there's a lot to "do". There are mods to be found, dungeons (Flashpoints) to be run, planets to explore, Starship upgrades to acquire, companions to suck up to, schematics to discover. The personal story line is really really ..personal. Y'know how we kind of wanted a 1 player game like Skyrim to have others in it? Well SWTOR kinda feels like that, though its annoying when people don't want to group with you for a quest boss and you have to stand around for what feels like an eternity waiting for it to respawn only for someone to steal it from under your blaster rifle.

I'm still on wow, my DK and Paladin are next in line to gearing up and are closing in on the 375 benchmark but then again the only thing to "do" on WOW now is raiding dragon soul...and I'm already kind of bored of the LFR version.

Turby the Vanguard

LFR Shenannigans

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:54:00 +0000

Yesterday was still a holiday for us in lieu of Boxing Day and so we queued up early into the LFR rage machine.

Two different stories. Our Siege of Wyrmrest was full of hate, rage, and contempt. So like every other group out there. We had a small group who were ninja pulling the bosses and people rolling on tokens they didn't need and holding them hostage. Though none of us gave them the pleasure of our attention and went home tokenless.

We were still kind of shocked at how rude some people can be or perhaps they were just a pre-made group out to spread malice and trollocity (that is a word), but seriously I think there should be a way to just punch someone in the teeth through computer screens. Then I'll break their fingers and apologize profusely because I'm Canadian.

We then queued for the last four bosses and....holy crap the drakes on Ultraxion were taunted down ASAP, everyone but 3 people clicked their buttons, EVERYONE stacked on twilight purple thing without being told, EVERYONE only killed one tentacle and didn't go balls to the walls DPS and we one shotted deathwing without even having to use a single battle res. Though my DK and his very horrible frost-dps did very horrible didn't end up with a single upgrade (that rule still implies, the worst performers win everything), the smooth run made up for it. It was the season of giving for my little undead, our resident mage won a helm token and to help him finish his 2 piece I gave up my legs from the earlier Siege of Ragerest Temple and I had half-assedly rolled on the blood sipper sword and won from Deathwing but decided that frost is just way too boring and that a friendly paladin tank could make much more use of it than me.

tl;dr: The LFR grouping gods do exist, and one day you may get that one perfect group!

Wonderful Friends: Trinkets

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:05:00 +0000

We all have and use and seek out powerful trinkets to aid us in downing the various baddies of Azeroth, but have we ever stopped and thought about what exactly these trinkets are?

Trinkets are probably some of the most powerful "things" out there. Think about the Darkmoone cards, a simple card that increases your stats significantly and some of them also have great magical bonuses or even a damage componenet. Do we carry these cards in our pockets or do we hold them out front and centre in battle so their effects could be utilized?

There are typicall three characteristics of trinkets:

Static Stats: Be it a straight up stamina/agi/int bonus, just by holding this item increases your personal power.

On Equip Effects: Be it a haste/mastery/spell/summoning proc, these trinkets somehow symbiotically link themselves to the user and react upon the user's actions when in combat.

On Use Effect: These trinkets grant us further bonuses however we must "activate" them. How do we activate them? I can imagine we crack them open or perhaps tap them three times, or maybe they are clap activated? Voice activated?

Real Life Trinkets:

1. Watch - On Use: Tell the time. +538 hit.
2. Lucky Charm - No Real Effect.
3. Mobile Phone - On Equip: Chance to make noises.

Real Life Trinkets That Resemble WoW Trinkets:

1. Lighter: On Use: Do 5 Fire Damage.
2. Headphones. On Use: Chance to absorb 100% of all sound until cancelled.

Okay I don't even know what the hell I was talking about anymore so I'm just going to end this post. Goodbye!

Truny and Trinkets?

Nerf X Class! Rage!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:29:00 +0000

That's pretty much my reaction to everything that happens in battlegrounds. Why am I talking about PVP? Well, this is due to that "My Little Helpers Helped Me Do Something Kill 50 People As A Gnome" achievement that I had finished up a couple days ago and I saw how very very useful the hunter T13 2-piece bonus is for the extra focus. But anyways:

"Nerf dks! They are MOVING! And they attack!"
"Nerf mages! Seriously, ice block? Nerf ice block! It makes you totally invincible that is totally unfair! Frost nova AND a pet freeze? So I have to hope that they use BOTH of these on me before I break out of 'em and just eat their weak frostbolts?"
"Nerf warlocks! They have too many dots, how am I supposed to get rid of them??"
"Nerf rogues! Stealth is too OP, nerf stealth!"
"Nerf hunters! Who the heck is allowed to attack to powerfully at ranged??" (Yes, all classes get treated fairly who attack me)
"Nerf druids! They don't really pose that much of a threat but I am attacking them so just nerf them so they die faster!"
"Nerf priests! Absorbs and totally immune to every single type of damage and a fear and slow built into every single attack that they have? They are immortal!"
"Nerf warriors! Let me be able to kite them even easier! They shouldn't be able to hit me with their weapons wtf?
"Nerf pallies! Their attacks are too shiny and seriously, after bubble wears off they end up dying anyways!"
"Nerf shamans!" Their totems are too useful and I want a chain lightning effect, it's too cool, nerf its coolness!"

Though in all honesty, with a hunter who knows what they're doing, and say that minimum range gets removed...hunters will be honestly OP as hell. Maybe let our attacks only do 75% damage in the deadzone? Or 100%, whatever, up to you! I look forward to finally FINALLY completing the Violet Protodrake achieve next year as my last last last achievement is "School of Hard Knocks", which I had avoided like the Violet Plague due to the pvp "things" that I had to do.

P.S. Is it just me or do we all feel that our pets need their own "Master's Call", which breaks US from our roots to free THEM? Would that be too OP? Well it won't be until it's used against my non-existant frost-mage!

Turby the Nerfed

Ridiculous Idea: Play Melee

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:16:00 +0000

I think it's the Christmas spirit getting to me that I've been having these wild and wacky thoughts all day: that I would level up and play some sort of melee dps. Say what?

I already have my DK, if it were any of my toons all he needs is a few pieces of gear and he'd be able to run LFR and test out the amazing fun that is Frost. I find playing Frost to be highly hypnotic. The potential is there to absolutely dominate on the charts but one thing I found was that it was very very boring. The first few minutes of playing is nice when all your attacks crit and what not, but...yeah no. Essentially all you do is position yourself, then stare at your three buttons, and whichever (is that a word?) lights up, you press it. Of course you have to mind your focus but that doesn't take a lot of brain power. Frost to me is at the point of just pushing buttons to churn out numbers, rather than being an ice cold frosty blade wielding frost..wielder..of..DOOM....

Next! My next highest melee-able character is my pally. She is 75% into level 84 and is currently a tank/healer. I remember being ret once and it was an absolutely horrendous experience. Perhaps one should never ever ever try out a dps spec with the mindset of being super efficient any time before level 85. Things just die too damn fast! Nonetheless in the at most 8 seconds for boss fights, I did top the meters as ret, with what little optimization that I could do but it didn't feel very...fulfilling. You know you are potentially a very good "dps player" when you can out-dps low level tanks. That's the standard I put myself up to. Yes, I've done this..even with a boomkin! Anyways, enough useless bragging. Do I want to give up tanking or healing to become clunky? Well I did see some ret pallies do very well in some of the LFR bosses....but they were probably heroic geared already...so no!

Next up is my rogue. I had a dream I was having fun playing my rogue. WTF? Again as combat/subtlety I can top the charts in the non-important level 72 dungeons that my rogue does, but in everyday use...rogues are horrible for questing. I tried out the assassination tree and OH MY is that clunky as ever or am I missing something? Makes retribution look playable! Subtlety is fun in the sense you get to sneak around but if your ambush doesn't crit then you'll spend the next ten minutes trying to out live your quest mob. Combat...ah combat, everyone and their rogue dog is combat and while it's made for teh fite, I don't think it feels very rogue-like..more akin to a nimble warrior. Or a clumsy ninja. Anyways, any class where I have to "keep up" some useless ability like savage roar or the rogue thing where it makes you attack faster....no thanks I'd prefer to be always attacking rather than waste my combo points thank you. (Aka I'm lazy)

So essentially if I were to have an optimal melee dps, it would be my DK. However...too boring. What happened to the days when we had to setup our diseases then mind our blood strike and watch our unholy/frost rune combos then either proc some death runes or wait for more blood runes or trigger certain combinations?

tl;dr: With my DK, I'm too busy watching my action bar, rather than the game. With my other characters, I can watch TV while playing the game.

*Update: I came to my sense, I'll stick with Prot/Holy on my Paladin