Kluptomania's Kluptomentum

Kluptomania is Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 14:43:00 +0000

Hello dear one or two readers who have stuck with me all these years! I was doing some blog revamping and through the power of internet research I've decided to migrate Kluptomania over to WordPress!

https://kluptomania.com/

The fact that I had to use HTML code to get the link to the link above is reason enough to move.

I know, I should have done this when the blog was still young five years ago. I had considered this but thought "meh" I'll stick with this.

I think I'll leave blogspot open as I don't dare to shut this down just yet, unless there are some implications of having duplicate content...but we will see.

My plan is to figure out the basics of Wordpress this weekend to make Truny & Friends' new home a fancy as fuck place to be!

Truny the Migrated

2017 Layout Refresh

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 16:40:00 +0000

Not that anyone other than myself cares, but this site is going through a face/boob/dick lift for 2017. So don't mind the mess!

April Nighthold and Mimiron's Head

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 06:07:00 +0000

My attempt to stay active in blog has resulted in an intricate intertwined string of events that led me to be more active in game, which led to more mounts that I have been farming for years on end finally rearing their ugly (Mimiron's) head. Though I would not say Mimiron's Head is ugly.

Yes I still can't believe within a week I am free from Mogushan Vaults and Ulduar (FOREVER)!!

While the discrete act of mount farming can no longer result in the serendipitous joy of a random drop, a drop is a drop. We are free. Going back to my old old checklist at the beginning of the year:

~~1. Do Mogu'shan Vaults for Elegon mount.~~
2. Do Nalak for mount.
3. Do Sha of Anger for mount.
~~4. Do Zul'Gurub for raptor mount~~ (Finally dropped this week!!)
~~5. Do Ulduar for Mimiron Head~~
~~6. Do ICC for Invincible~~
7. Do DS for Blazing Drake (with 7 lockouts)
8. New activity: Do Rukhmar for mount.
9. New activity: Mythic Garrosh Mount. Luckily I grinded out Mythic Blackhand/Archimonde when they were still 100%
10. New activity: Do Horridon for mount.
11. New activity: Do Ji'kun for mount.
12. New activity: Prod WoD garrison invasions for missing mounts.

Nigthold Updates

We are now 8/10 Heroic, with Elisande now on "progression" (while we haven't even seen the fight yet) and Truny is a solid 895 and has finally obtained her 4-Piece bonus which skyrocketed her damage. If there was anything else to distinguish the fine line between gear and skill is how Legion handles tier and legendary drops.

Basically you could be an amazing player, but without your 4P you can't keep up with anyone so strive for that 4P, endure RNGsus' wrath. I could NOT break over 500k without the 4P, and it just comes naturally with.

Now all I need is a legendary item that BOOSTS DPS.

The destruction 4P gives us faster Conflag cool-downs, and one more charge of Conflag. I'm also starting to see a theme here where Blizzard is trying to force loving Conflag down our throats, what with there being multiple gold traits that buff Conflag.

Seriously why shouldn't our "main" thing be Chaos Bolt? Conflag was and still is just a means to generate shards, while the damage has gone way up now in Legion it doesn't feel like wasted time casting it.

I am still using two utility legendaries, while I would argue I love 'em and here is where I found the greatest use out of them for all of the heroic bosses (regular is now too trivial to care for).

Pillars of the Dark Portal: Great for leaping great distances.

Scorpion: no use.
Tichondrius: green circle clearing (in style)
Tichondrius: moving to other side of room with debuff (in style)
Chronowhatever: moving to the add that spawns on the side
Krosus: moving to cover his ember mob spawn mechanic
Trillax: getting the cakes.
Trillax: getting out of the laser.
Aluriel: no use.
Star Auger: leaping out when surrounded by fel.
Tel'arn: purple of doom/fire of doom escaping
Elisande: TBD
Guldan: TBD

Norgannon's Foresight: We can move while casting again, sort of.

Scorpion: Moving out of focused blast.
Chronowhatever: Whenever you need to sidestep.
Trillax: N/A, can't stay still long enough for laser phase.
Aluriel: N/A
Auger: Moving out ice or moving out of fel.
Tel'arn: Every goddamn mechanic he has!
Krosus: Laser beams dodging!
Tichondrius: Not really important, but moving to pillars?

I will most likely replace the Pillars if I were to (finally) get either the shoulders of belt, though I will greatly miss being able to have the longest distance instant travel in game (confirmed?).

Alts

Turny Druid: 110 - 872. He's ready to do old raids!
Trueny DH: 110 - 845. He's sort of ready to do old raids. And DH are really fun and slick to play.
Turby Hunter: 105 - 705. Not ready. Levelling up and giving Marksman a shot.
Klupty DK: 105 - ???. Same as above, but as Frost.

I have no plans for my alts, not even LFR plans...just...getting them up because they dserve it! While Legion seems really annoying for alts, once you hit 110 you open up a "free" world of choices, and gearing up through WQs feels "appropriate". Also you basically get your first legendary for free within a day of dinging 110.

Now I shall also try to have at least one image per post to end this off awkwardly and abruptly!

Truny the Free From Ulduar Forever

April Nighthold Reins of the Astral Cloud Serpent

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 05:46:00 +0000

Progress is what keeps the engines of ingenuity and the mechanisms of society churning until the cows come home.

I'm looking at my previous update where the status of my toons was rather droll, yet there has been noticeable progress:

Truny: 875 middling performance now 892 doing still better middley. Finally bonus rolled a 2P, which isn't much but its still something to write home about in these times of war. Updated as of tonight I now have 3P, just waiting on one more to do some insane Chaos Bolt barrage damage. No rush,

We're able to blast through five of the first random bosses in Heroic Nighthold in one sitting now, as we slowly slowly gear up.

Enjoy this random photo:

Forlon af.

Turny: Went from nothing to 10 with his first set of Legendary Shoulders: Aman'thul's Wisdom, did some content and now he's at 872 so basically ready to do NH Flex.

Most importantly, Turny the Tree was the one who finally finally found Elegon's Reins of the Astral Cloud Serpent. I have been running this raid on as many level 100 toons that could handle the raid ever since they all hit 100 back in WoD! It's great to not have to ever go into MV again, that is until Raiding With Leashes V or VI is released.

When doing mount runs, I like to NOT read what dropped off the bosses, but to just LOOK at the items in my inventory. Every week I had hoped to see the happy dragon face that represented a successful mount drop, and this week FINALLY an unfamiliar icon appeared in my bags!

Trueny: Wait what who is this? This is the mandatory Demon Hunter that I made upon the release of Legion, and I do have to say that the DH is a fun class. Unlike other classes that get rekt down to 50% health on every single quest pull, the DH acts as efficiently as a previously raid geared Warlock, able to take down tough foes...and when the going gets tough can swap into immortal tank mode. Via Legion invasions, I got this demon hunter all the way to 110 in just a few days, and of course after a few emissary quests he found the nice necklace that gives the 25% HP shield every 30 seconds.

Turby: Currently abandoned hunter. I've revisited Turby and I think I can tolerate how boring BM is. I think its a matter of completely erasing half a decade of muscle memory and expectations, but it can be done, as there are many things left to hunt!

Overall, this week was fruitful, especially for having one of my top 3 favouritely wanted mounts drop!

Turny the Tree

Pillars of the Dark Portal Usage Update

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 18:55:00 +0000

So I've gone through all of Flex Nighthold and the first quarter of Heroid Nighthold trying to saltily maximize the use of the utility legendary known as the Pillars of the Dark Portal.

Here are the following usage notes that I have on all of the bosses:

Scorpion
No need to jump around.

Chromatic Anomaly
When tanks run towards adds, its nice to be able to jump across the screen to continue casting here and also stick a nice Havoc on the Add.

Trillax
Jump to cakes/feasts/bombs/back in for lasers mode.

Alurieleile
Not much use.

Star Auger Eteresrus
I have no recollection of this boss, probably didn't use.

High Botanist
Wasn't there a big dark growing pool here? I used it to make a fancy getaway instead of just running.

Krosus
Used to gate onto one of the fel flame ground things and or to get away when I have the ball of death on me to port way to the back.

Tichondrius
Nope

Elisandre
Again when tanks run off to grab adds, can jump with them.

Gul'dan
To fancily escape his death storm.

So far they are really upping my supposed survival rates, and definitely my coolness rates, but maybe not so much on DPS rates but meh who cares.

Will continue testing once Tomb comes out!

Truny the Pillared

Nighthold and Salt Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 18:46:00 +0000

Greetings my singular reader of almost a decade,

I just reviewed my previous update back in February announcing my return to WoW and it appears that I have already made some progress:

I was 857, now 875 from actually doing content and not complaining.
Ran through some LFRs, and Nighthold Flex.
Got my first Legendary item (Pillars of the Dark Portal)
That's about it, oh and Turny the Druid is now 110

It also appears that there was a patch called 7.1.5 which everyone is salty over, and also these Pillars of the Dark Portal legendary pants are also causing a lot of salt.

Whut.

Why is everyone so mad?

See I've come back to the game with a renewed look on life. I no longer care about topping the meters or the constant gear grind (while upgrades are nice, and helps with overall progress...if I don't get them...then so be it, if I do...they'll be obsolete soon anyways).

This would have been a very strange concept a year ago but I'm just playing for playing. Did I become what is known in the community as a "casual"? Or a "good" player who no longer cares? Does that even exist? Are you even ALLOWED to be "good" if you don't care?

I am still aware of what stats are important to my specs, and know my spells and have all survival buttons in muscle memory, but I just don't "care"? Sure there's the baseline level of caring in that I'm still playing, but just not as crucially intense as before?

BOOM Topic Change: Salt

So according to the overall community I am supposed to be unhappy with all things warlock.

The first instance of this was when my legendary pants Pillars of the Dark Portal showed on the screen.

Let's summarize these pants. Yes pants:

Let's you cast Demonic Gate instantly and gives you two charges before initiating the cool-down basically.
Massive stats.
No specific DPS increase passive.
Love and hate all over the place.

What do I think about them? Well since they were a 90 ilvl upgrade over what I had before, I ain't complaining.

Now, I do see where everyone is getting at. They changed Demonic Gate to give anyone who uses it a cool-down before entering it again, and if I remember correctly it used to just be 15 seconds instead of two minutes.

So these pants basically bring us back to a halfway point between the past and now, except now the gate casts and shows up basically instantly, letting you jump away...though in a rather clunky fashion since you still have to click the gate (unlike a warrior's instant leap).

We lost mobility, now you gain it back except you need a freaking legendary item to do it sort of half-assedly. Okay.

But working with what we have, this is really useful to be able to jump at will and teleport across dangerous poo on demand. While I've only literally used them for ONE day I am already looking for ways to make use of this ability, regardless if it doesn't boost my DPS by 50% or whatever the other legendaries do.

Clever Topic Change: LFR

Did LFR get easier, or did the community really rest the calamities that is their mammaries and just really mellowed out? There's no rage, or stupid people? Okay fine the first person that did speak out did call the tank a retard, but otherwise all the runs have been very smooth? Is this normal? Or is it really to the point where the mechanics don't REALLY matter (so much for a stepping stone/learning point for new raiders) and its impossible to die?

Final Rant: World Bosses

Seriously, half the cool mounts now reside in easily soloable MOP world bosses and they need a MASSIVE HP buff. What the actual fuck. Sha of Anger...dead before you can fly to it. Come on, give it a billion HP, give it an immunity shield for 30 seconds...the only way to even get a kill in is to camp out ONE specific spot for all of eternity. Same with Huolon (at least he only has one spawn point) and the like. Seriously it's annoying and makes me once again hate CRZ once again. Not only did you artificially raise the competition for rares you've also lowered the access to them unless you've got 360noscopemountaindew reflexes. Why does CRZ exist again? Since when since Wrath have we needed or wanted the help of others? Them game design choices doe. More people = more competition = fewer mounts = more salt.

Leave CRZ to the group finder. that has been amazing. People on demand, not all the time. When we don't need each other we'll be in our own servers at peace.

Until the day comes where my life is on the line and CRZ saves my ass I will NEVER EVER stop complaining about this. (To be fair I did meet some cool peeps while randomly farming old rep, but there was no competition, only collaboration).

So in conclusion, happy hunting.

Love,

Truny the Carried Warlock

2017 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 19:51:00 +0000

I'm still around my one single reader!

While I haven't been on WoW, Truny remains a respectable 857 ready to be carried through the new Gul'dan raid at anytime....and speaking of which I will need to start looking forward to Gul'dan's MOUNT!

I've been on Creativerse. If you care to join, its free on Steam and we're currently on the Exalted Shrubbers world!

I'd say more, but Creativerse requires screenshots and videos and my general penchant towards voxel open world sandboxy games vs the structured grind of MMOs like WoW. Perhaps another day once work dies down.

Until then,

Truny

Designated Legion Welcome Post

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 19:11:00 +0000

Hello my dear one single reader,

WARNING: NO SPOILERS

Thank you again for sticking with me through all these years!

I had briefly moved onto play random games like Creativerse and FFXIV, but all that is the past as Legion is back and its a roaring good time.

Where to Begin: The Story

Questionable/10

I have been meaning to do the obligatory Legion Just Launched post earlier but, I had to play the darned thing and there's so much to talk about that it just isn't possible to complete this in one sitting!

I'll have to go into semi-sporadic notes mode with this one.

Where did the Broken Isles come from again? Last I remember, we defeated Archimonde for his now 1% drop mount, and he cast Gul'dan away into a portal.

So between that time and now Gul'dan has somehow revived the Legion by finding Sargeras' tomb?

Apparently the old Gul'dan had already found the tomb and was ripped to shreds, so the Broken Isles had existed before WOTLK?

The Questing

10/10

The stories of each zone were well done, while I felt that they were short and sweet (or I was so immersed it felt short?).

Azsuna: Basically a borough of Suramar, it is elfy and magical.

Stormheim: Basically Howling Fjord 2.0.

High Mountain: For whatever reason I loved the winding passes and the mountainousness of this zone. But its basically what Thunder Bluff wished it was.

Val'sharah: Be warned if you play a druid you WILL die of orgasmic overload.

Suramar: Basically my favourite zone EVER. You will see once you reach it.

Class Fantasy

While everyone was blasting their way to 110 and immediately doing mythic dungeons on the SECOND DAY OF RELEASE I was first levelling my Truny then decided to get ALL my level 100 characters (Only 5) their first weapon as well.

The class halls was what garrisons was testing out and it's what I thought garrisons SHOULD have been, a minor but integral part of the game, but does not take up 95% of all content. Very well done.

Below is a list of all the classes I have tried out:

Warlock: Destruction

We are basically the same, with the removal of embers for soul shards you no longer spam incinerate to fill up the gauge, which feels...kind of empty. Rather you wait for conflagrate and also immolate crits.

With Shadowburn thrown into the mix and our Demonic Power cleave, destruction actually feels a bit more chaotic and spastic. Will update once we start raiding.

Warlock: Demonology

Truny is 110.

So many demons. We lose metamorphosis, which was a clunky-ish in-and-out CD in exchange for summoning tons of demons which we empower. Single target sustained damage seems okay. A bit of a ramp-up. Can't really switch targets. Implosion is fun but higher ramp-up. Your weapon talks to you! I found Demo to be a bit more interesting than Destruction for levelling, since you can basically level up with Shadowburn without looking.

Warlock: Affliction

More DOTS, more self healing, but otherwise....eh I like seeing my spells. Will comment if I randomly raid with this spec.

Warlock: Summary

Overall very fun, as Demonic Armor makes us nearly invincible unless we're taking on 10+ mobs unexpectedly. Our class hall is pretty damn awesome. Shadowburn spam is fun. Multiple demons is fun. Phantom Singularity sounds bad-ass.

Druid: Boomkin

Turny is only 102.

One word: Full Moon. I'm glad the lame moon cycle is gone cause sometimes you just zone out and don't care outside a srs bsns environment.

Druid: Restoration

One word: Have you SEEN our artifact abilities? OP HAXORZ??

Druid: Summary

Well I've only gotten to 102 but Boomkin is just..FULL MOON. I might just heal to 110 cause wow Boomkins take SO much damage (aka more than 2% of health per fight) compared to the warlock and can't really take down more than 8 mobs at once.

Hunter: BM

Turby is only 101.

What happened?? Sure the weapon is cool but why do we feel so...clunky? So much waiting? I think it's actually just the actual tactile feedback of the class. Dire Beast has no sound so its just hitting a button. Cobra shot is fairly silent even though we use a gun. Our gun is silent. Kill Command is also relatively quiet now so its just like...hitting buttons. It's...no good. And what happened to Spirit bond? Why am I taking damage?? Why is my pet dying?

I can still chain-kill tons of mobs at once but can no longer do a dozen mobs? Or i'm just undergeared.

Hunter: Survival

Decided to try out our new melee spec since finding BM to be...amiss. It's actually quite fun. We're like..a pseudo wearrior with a pet, which somehow feels more like BM than the actual BM spec. There's actually a spell that's synergistic with the pet. Rather than spamming silent buttons? Not much AOE and also "survivability" is questionable against more than 3 mobs.

Hunter: Summary

Will try out MM ...way way later. Our self heals are down, pet heals are down, we're just....not OP? Can I say that? Why am I waiting on energy we're not a silly rouge or warrior? Why does BM feel so....disjointed? It's not...satisfying. I can't really seem to put my finger on it but it just feels....lacking somehow.

Demon Hunter: The DPS One

Trueny is 100.

Loldoublejump

Tried it, it's fun. Probably won't continue with it though. Because the only melee I enjoy has stealth...

Rogue: Assassination

Runy is 100.

That weapon scenario was fun times. Kind of like getting the Fangs of the Father, stealthy style. I might try out Subtlety after reading up on the changes today....

End Game

Wow, there's actually STUFF to do at 110. Lots of stuff. Like we have to decide what to do and what not to do stuff! World Quests have finally arrived. Remember when we used to say things like: "There should just be random quests around the world to help out the locals"? It's been answered.

Sure its mainly gear and AP grinding but since its a choose your own adventure thing it doesn't feel "forced". What I do is just do the 4 Emissary Quests then log off.

One good thing is we don't have to do BORING dungeons to gear up. Sure a lot of effort is put into designing dungeons and encounters, but really....5 mans are just...so much boring mob killing then some boring boss fight for a chance at gear, and for those of us who haven't quit but are sick of the gear treadmill, WQ's have really really helped with the boring dungeon grind.

Perhaps I'm just some jaded impatient wrath baby elitist but the time-to-effort ratio for boring normal dungeons that require no extra skill beyond what we've already developed over the past DECADE whatsoever is just ...no good. Eg. If someone hadn't also chain pulled some mobs outside a boss fight, Truny could have almost solo'd one of the bosses after everyone died in that ...underground dungeon. I don't know which one LMAO. See, we might not have amazing big dick dungeon damage burst but Warlocks are still borderline immortal?

My ultra arrogant attitude that has developed in the past couple expansions is that Truny can basically operate at around 18-27 ilvl above her equipped so I won't even bother gearing up until that is actually tested in the first raid encounter.

Reputations are back and are paced very nicely. You can choose to farm the hell out of WQ or just take everything in stride. Again SURAMAR IS AMAZING I WANNA LIVE THERE!

I'm starting to lose my train of thought and shoving everything under the End Game heading now.

Overall, Legion seems to have been very well done. Heck even the tailoring quest chain was entertaining and I don't think I'm even done yet! Other than BM feeling sort of...off kind of like how Warlocks kinda sucked in Cata everything is going well. We already know that end-game is WQ farming and that's pretty entertaining. Let's check back in in a few months yeah?

Love,

Truny, Turby, Turny

Designated Mount Farmer?

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 03 May 2016 02:37:00 +0000

My gnome warlock Trumy has been on a roll ever since I got his tiny little ass up to level 100. First was the Thone of the Four Winds drake, and now within two weeks Invincible and Experiment B-12!

One raid I'll never have to run again!

Sadly I am still missing Blazing Drake off of Deathwing, so gotta keep painfully bringing down Alexstrasza's no longer clutch and doing the spine dance.

And there I have fulfilled my image quota for the month.

Trumy the Secret Warlock

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 18:24:00 +0000

Wow, I haven't updated since JANUARY?

Not much to talk about. I am still doing the same old routine.

Horde 100's

1. Do Mogu'shan Vaults for Elegon mount.
2. Do Nalak for mount.
3. Do Sha of Anger for mount.
~~4. Do Zul'Gurub for raptor mount~~ (Finally dropped this week!!)
5. Do Ulduar for Mimiron Head
6. Do ICC for Invincible
7. Do other things probably mount related.
8. Sometimes wait for Nalak when i'm refilling my Mogu Runes of Fates for Nalak.
9. Do ONE Timewalking for the 500 coins on my druid everytime Timewalking appears.

My transmog game is pretty strong, and my bags/bank are pretty much 100% full. Hopefully Legion brings the cloud storage to fruition.

Alliance Lowbies

I made a new hunter on a secret server on Alliance side and am enjoying questing through content I've never seen before

That's about it, nothing new. I will post some screenshots of random stuff though if anyone cares (I DO).

Turny the Tree

Demonology Warlock: 6.2.3

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:50:00 +0000

At least I think we're in 6.2.3?

I've found that a post I made almost FIVE years ago is still getting views. Why? What information are you looking for? The good old days? I read over my post and wow, there's been so many changes to our spec that I've completely forgotten of the old spells and rotations but I bet if they changed it back it'd be like riding a bike. A very convoluted five wheel bike that sometimes changes to four, then three, then five, then is a bus, then is a bike again.

*Please correct me if I have timings off, its been too long!*

Truny's Recollection of Demonology
In Wrath

I played very casually, usually alone on my hunter during wrath. The friends who introduced me to WoW slowly left and I was on the brink of quitting since I had only played for about half a year, took a year off and came back.

What prevented me from leaving this world was the discovery of alts: specifically Truny the Warlock and Turny the Tree. They played so differently than my hunter, and the "fantasy" of a demonology warlock totally spell-bound me.

I could turn into a different form to augment my strength and soulfire back then hit like a truck, rather than the meh smart-car it is now. And our "rotation" was still fairly simple as at Wrath.

In Cataclysm

Things started to get ...weird in Cataclysm and demonology ended up being a hybrid of Destruction and Affliction. I remember juggling BOTH Immolate and Corruption, AND shadowbolt, AND Soulfire?? I didn't play my warlock much since my Hunter and later Druid became a raid hero, obtaining my most proudful mount, the Lifebinder's Handmaiden.

In MoP

MoP finally "fixed" warlocks in that we were playable. Very playable. My hunter took a backseat this time and Truny completely wrecked face. Mainly as destruction. This was the class resource revamp expansion where we saw burning embers and Demonology inheriting its totally weird demon form with "vamped" up spells equivalent to normal spells.

This would set the precedent for the Demonology rotation we have today.

Now to clear things up I am totally fine with the current Demonology rotation given that its semi transplanted into my muscle memory but I do see how very very weird it is to someone JUST starting.

Remember the old demonology? Where we used soul fire procs, then they made it so soul fire was exclusively an execute? That's easy to deal with.

Remember managing corruption and immolate? Well, Hand of Gul'dan is KIND OF like immolate, but now if you have the class trinket off Archimonde it makes HoG kind of like what Legion is supposed to do, blast out imps.

So they kept adding and adding to our rotation. Now there was curse of doom and touch of chaos, you were supposed to use Demo form as a CD and spam touch to maintain your corruption, but also manage your demonic fury via chaos wave on multiple targets, or *HERE IT IS* pop out of demon form to use Hand of Gul'dan, and while you're out you might as well spam some shadow bolts and then re-cast corruption if its falling off.

Now most fights have adds, and adds = AOE = dps whore mode. And this is where you want maximum dps, so you pop back into demo form to chaos wave them.

In WoD

So here we are in WoD and nothing much has changed from this "old" but semi convoluted rotation. We can now even make use of the Cataclysm spell for some absolutely massive AOE burst. For those who are used to the rotation will find raids exceedingly fun and dyanmic, popping in and out to maximize. But for new players....

For New Players

I think a lot of classes make where their source of damage come from quite obvious:

Melee: Their weapons. Through hitting.
Paladins: Through holy shit. Such bright.
Warriors: So rage.
Rogues: Wow, such stealth. Much hide.
DKs: Wow easy mode.
Monks: My fist to your FAISE.
Druid: Claws.

Hunter: Self, or pet, or just self. Via shots.

Mage: Magical shit.
Priests: Shadow shit.
Boomkins: Lasers mofo.
Shamans: Nature shit..

Affliction Warlocks: Dots and drains and shit.
Dstruction Warlocks: Fire and Brimstone. And shit.

Demonology Warlocks: Our demons?...wait no, our nukes..well no we have dots, our...demon form? No...well its like a combination of all of it and none of it feels especially fantastic/satisfying OTHER than nailing down the rotation it otherwise doesn't fit the fantasy.

Closing

Now I do hope the new Demonology isn't excessively one-dimensional. To be honest when I don't feel like using my brain OR when its just single target I prefer to go Destruction.

But if I feel like attempting the dance, the payoff is totally worth the multi-facted waltz that is Demonology.

Truny the Demon

OH wait did you come here for info? I mean our class is going away in three quarters? Uh well here's the tl;dr of Demonology as at today 01/18/2016 (Thanks for myself for putting this since in a years time I will look back at this post to see how weird demo was or how good it used to be depending and pending).

1. Keep corruption up.
1b. Get Curse of Doom up early and watch it.
2. Refresh hand of guldan buff, OR save it for Chaos Wave on multiple AOE, otherwise try to keep 1 up and save 2, and possibly line up to Cataclysm and other CDs.
3. Spam shadowbolt.
4. Save soulfire procs, use some if it hits 10 and you're not in execute mode.
5. Depending on mobs, pop into demon mode and touch. Touch their bum. Mainly to refresh curse of doom and make sure corruption isn't going to fall off cause touch also refreshes corruption.
6. Never hit demonic fury cap
7. Execute with soul fire, but keep your dots up.
8. Feed your imps.
9. Please please find a good transmog for your Wrathguard, he deserves it.
Bonus. You are a MOBILE CASTER in demonology form take advantage of the fact that you can spam touch of chaos ON THE MOVE as well as cast Chaos Wave on the move.
Bonus 2. Use demonic leap to move instead of with your feet like the peasants. Who needs to run around a pool when you can jump over it?
Bonus 3. Don't expect to have insane l337 burst, your damage builds up as your dance improves.

Truny the Demon

Wow Down to 5.6 Subs: A Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 20:07:00 +0000

Not really a discussion as I know I will end up wandering away as I type. I had created this draft all the way back in AUGUST of 2015 that is how much I potentially don't really care anymore? Anyways.

I was waiting for this number for many months and I had exceeded my expectations as I had initially forecasted subs to be in the 5.2 million range.

Has WoW finally and officially become just a product, a "cash-cow", aka the cash-flow hedge?

I mean, it always has been but hear me out.

In our industry, and I am going to be purposefully vague, our products and services generate a massive amount of revenue but are affected by environmental/political/economic factors and can create unwanted fluctuations. Enter in hedging 101, "hedge your bets" aka make sure you have a comfort blanket, a blanket made out of cash, reliable cash. Mm soft silky lustrous delicious cash. What's the best way to provide yourself with a comfortable low risk yet steady/stable cash flow? Hey, subscriptions!

In the real world, this can be seen by owning multiple properties and renting them out hence securing income without having to do much after all the paperwork is through.

Now I'm pretty sure we could all feel this throughout the expansions but the executive decision side of the game's PASSION has all but worn thin and WoD is the perfect example of what it looks like when content is just created for the sake of content.

Now there are tons of factors involved, most likely mid to mid-senior level management decisions/conflicts but one of the enduring comments of WoD is that "The art and story is great but everything else is just meh".

We can see here that art/story are unaffected by the gameplay/mechanics/delivery aspect of the game, but it is the decisions made in regards to the vision of the game is what I am most concerned about.

Stop blaming the "devs" I truly do think that if they had it their way WoD would still be blowing our minds right now. Wow such blow, so mind ..blown.

They attempted to present WoW in a pseudo-casual/mobile model with garrisons/shipyards and possibly trying to curb gold sellers by eliminating professions and made everything just really....weird.

I think what they think will retain subs might backfire: "People have invested so much time in their toons/mounts they won't leave".

Well, I've labored to collect 250+ mounts(except for the purple flying tiger) and am an obsessive collector of mini pets, I still managed to get four toons to 100 (2 of which I stopped using cause ew) and the rest are at 90 and almost every Klupty and all low level Turny/Turny/Turby you can find in the wowarmory are mine.

Pending how they deliver the next expansion may make or break these ti-

That is where I officially left off in August 2015, and I am now wondering what I was going to say? Make or break these ti-?? Timing? Ties?

Anyhow. Regardless of my personal investment, if its crap people will leave regardless of how great it used to be. WoD right now is in a weird place. This "expansion" is more like a preview of the next when Legion actually invades. This expansion could have been the first few patches of Legion. Hmmmm.

I am already liking the preliminary info on how Demonology warlocks are going to play like: A DEMON specialist (most likely maniacal) who sends swarms of demons into the fray.

All I have to say now is "Let's see". Let's see if the fantasy for Legion will hold strong from beginning to the end and not just end at the cut-scenes of the new zones.

Truny the Skeptical

How Timewalking of You to Join Us

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:42:00 +0000

Hi 2016

I won't make the same mistake as last year by having my first post of the year occur in February!

So what has the triple-crew been up to? I have mainly been trolling around FFXIV what with real housing and professions to do and what not.

On the WoW front, I do my mission tables on Turby the Hunter, and he is back in Pandaria doing archaeology. My goal is to acquire the Tol'vir mount this year!

Truny will do her pet battles and rare hunting in Tanaan for sport, and log in every 2 weeks for her free mythic caches.

Turny is my designated time-walking dungeon hero.

Every week time-walking arrives, Turny the Tree will pop online and start healing like a crazy person. This time I even remembered to do FIVE dungeons for the free gear rather than just the first time 500 points turn-in!

Now I have a gripe with the ICC 5-mans. We got Pit of Saron and the mobs seemed to be hitting EXTRA hard and that's when I remembered that this came out after what...T9? So most people would be in the range of 245-251, raiders maybe higher at 264+ but all our gear was scaled to 200!

We still managed to clear since we were STOOPIT but wow....scaling much? What happened to the good old days of throwing on 1 rejuv and life bloom and then go preparing lunch? Fun times though. For a character who I don't think has even set foot in Highmaul any 695+ free gear is good, right?

Timewalking

I haven't really given Time-walking the discussion that it deserves. When it was announced we were all in our "WoD sucks" phase and Time-walking just looked like a distraction of psuedo-content.

Sure, its just re-scaling old content, and doing the Outlands dungeons was a challenge but I didn't start in BC like all the cool kids. I started in Wra- wait not again! Come back!

Ok you're calm?

I started in Wrath, and yesterday's time-walking was my first wrath time-walking and I'd have to say the nostalgia is real. Wrath was where I went from unknowing noob to core raider to DPS-whore-who-also-always-died-last. It was in wrath that I discovered that raiding wasn't so fancy shmancy exclusive big dick club that we were waxed nostalgic about.

Running halls of lightning, all the old reflexes and habits kicked in. Why did I run behind this mob? Oh yeah, it shoots a death laser. I remembered all the mechanics! Could I say the same for the WoD dungeons? Ok maybe I could but...ok nevermind.

The Supreme elitists may say that wrath made the game super easy and gear became excessively available, but then once you meet these same supreme elitists on the battlefield you realize you are more efficient and effective in both output and damage mitigation even with their fancy gear vs your welfare epics.

WoD 2016

Nope, nothing to see here.

Turny the Tree

WoD Was Just a Time Loop

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 18:31:00 +0000

Well played Blizzard, well played.

As everyone is busy busting their nuts over patch 6.2.3; aka the "This Should Have Came With Launch" patch, we need to realize that this xpac is a beautifully perfect play on time-travel conundrums.

WoD's incomplete launch was on purpose. If we take all the patches combined.. "6.1", 6.2, 6.2.3 (what happened in between 6.2-6.2.3 I did not notice), we end up with a FULL launch xpac. WoD is now complete and whole and fresh and new. However this also marks the end of the xpac. The beginning is the end. Ultraxion had it right all along:

"I am the beginning of the end...the shadow which blots out the sun...the bell which tolls your doom..." (Ultraxion 2011)

But my dear Ultraxion, the beginning IS the end; WoD cast its own shadow upon the shining glory that is WoW; the bell which tolled its doom.

Will I play in 6.2.3? Well having been inactive for THREE months I am still rocking ilvl 700+ from all the freebie gear and now that there is a rare mount to be caught and personal gradual progression my answer is "Probably heck ya!".

I have not touched the legendary quest past the 695 (?) ring and I do not intend on jumping into LFR any time soon. So no ring for me but that's okay. Truny is rocking her old 4P from the Foundry so upgrading those should be good enough to the end of the xpac.

So they solved one part of the puzzle, but what shall we do while waiting on our queues? Ah wait I'll just play my druid for healer queues!

Will people come back in the MILLIONS to upgrade their gear? Assuming gear levels have remained relatively untouched, maybe not.

Turny the Time Tree

If You're in the Gaming Industry, Never Break This Rule

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 18:21:00 +0000

Is this even a contentious issue? No, because it has never really BEEN a major issue. Has it always been quietly on the sidelines, trying to dig into the core issues that players tend to rant/complain/report about? Hell yes.

The reason why regardless of your role in a gaming company be it the CFO, chief programmer, janitor, food supplier, contractor, everyone must be "with it" for whatever your gaming mission and vision is. This is where I love using the word "immersion" and getting people talking. Who DOESN'T want their players to be immersed in their game?

Ahh that is the golden question. I commend you my single reader for following me for so long *digital tree-branch druid high-five*. What we saw in WoD is what broke this rule, and why there has been an increase of discussion towards the mobile gaming market in my humble old blog. They are all related. Sort of.

Let's look at mobile games. Low development cost, but with the right setup, massive massive potential for immense profitability. Massive margins. Look at Candy Crush, they were making $300,000 a day? Now before you put on your judgmental glasses, that is totally fine. There is only so much "immersion" you can expect out of a mobile game, but it can be designed so that you never ever break this very important rule.

We can summarize that most mobile games try to churn out low development content to fish for the highest possible returns over time. Sometimes what they offer hit gold or become niche/clique eg Flappy Bird type games, Angry Bird where you can build a brand on top of it, etc etc.

Regardless, in the time that players are immersed, most mobile games don't break the golden rule. The ones that do tend to fail or stagnate.

We can skirt about this rule, but if your game is strong enough then players won't care. They'll find ways around it.

What exactly is this strange rule?

The answer: Players should never question your business decisions.

Now, business decisions differ from what we see as business model. A game may be set-up as a pay-to-get-ahead model, but players will adjust. WoW may be slowly shifting from an MMO with an in-game store type model. That is fine.

It's the business decisions where it gets dirty.

When players question your model, they visualize a model usually with charts and graphs and there are expectations and preconceptions and that's it. They go back to the game.

When we start questioning your business decisions, how you handle PR, what you are doing with your designers, why certain decisions were made, we start digging deeper in our visualizing. We picture your office, we start seeking out a target. Who made that decision, and why? The players are now TOO close to us. Get them back into the game, and out of our offices in their heads.

Uh oh immersion's coming back. When you completely break any sense of game immersion with questionable actions, the players have nothing to hang onto in game and we start seeking. Once we're in, you're going to need a lot to get us back out. We no longer see a game as just a game, but a product from a company who makes questionable decisions.

Tough decisions need to be made I agree but what I am trying to say is COVER YOUR ASSES. Make that link, get your decision makers to understand the implications of how they are affecting immersion. Have a back-up plan to keep us out of our own heads.

That is enough with free advice for one day, get the hell out of my office.

Turny the Angry Tree

FFXIV: Things I Miss From WoW

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 19:03:00 +0000

Not everything is all rainbows and sunshine in FFXIV. While FFXIV currently (as at WoD Hellfire Citadel Raid) trumps WoW in terms of character progression/development/immersion, profession, community, story, real player housing, there are a lot of cumbersome points that people tend to gloss over but I shall be the reasonable and balanced player here! But let's start with the complainy bitchy stuff first!

Truny's Top 10 FFXIV Pet Peeves

1. Storage space (or lack of bag management addon).

Storage space is horrible in this game where you are limited to 2 retainers who can hold 140 items each, and also your own bag. While this sounds decent, as there are NO JUNK items in FFXIV, you'll end up hoarding everything and eventually losing them. If you're leveling multiple professions, the constant upgrading of multiple gear-sets is bound to fill up your armoury which is an additional storage of all your gear.

The fact that we can't SEARCH for items and that a lot of items have similar icons make looking for a specific fish or berry that I stashed away ten levels ago a particular hassle.

While this is a great addition, the armoury NEVER sorts itselt to highest level item first, so this must be manually done EVERY TIME you go in. Makes it a pain to swap classes.

The guild storage space is a joke. 3 slots non-expandable. The total storage is probably LESS than what a normal person has in their bags.

2. Playing on Multiple Devices.

I know this is FWP'y but for those of us with multiple homes and multiple computers/laptops FFXIV is a NIGHTMARE as your bars and gearsets and keybinds DO NOT get saved server side. And of course since there are so many classes on one of your toons, if you made any progress on one computer, you're pretty much focked. There IS a way to copy over the data files but that's such a hassle. Luckily my keybinds have been relatively standard in all MMO's, but still an ANNOYANCE.

This point exacerbates point 1 as there is SO MUCH gear clogging up your armoury when you're levelling up multiple classes/professions its just a nightmare to sort through and find your highest ilvl piece again.

3. Clunky Companion System.

Level 20 is a magical time for most players as they have most likely heard of having their Chocobo MOUNT fight with them! While this is an awesome addition, with stances and skills and gear and feather custom colors.....this "pet" system isn't exactly seamless since the Chocobo acts as an additional member to your PARTY.

So this means you can't queue for a dungeon with your chocobo, nor can you dismiss them, queue, then resummon. You also can't jump into a duty with your chocobo out. Why can't the game dismiss them FOR ME? If you're a squishy DPS who likes having your chocobo as backup, well..while you're queuing you're on your own.

4. Scattered Attunement Quests

Perhaps I'm inefficient without seeking out information but each of FFXIV's dungeons have a "hardmode" or even an "Extreme" mode and since I came back just at the release of Heavensward, a lot of the old content is just ...old, but to unlock certain hardmode features one must know where to find the proper quest. This also comes from materia desynthing, treasure map finding, how were we supposed to even FIND these quests? A lot of them are random NPC's in random locations. Locations I would not even think of going back to unless there was a specific resource or fishing node happened to be nearby?

Perhaps I should speak to EVERY SINGLE NPC? An Adventurer's Guide would definitely be handy here.

5. Gathering Success Rates Look ....Stupid

When you're out gathering the UI shows a % success for how likely you are to gather a certain item. Due to only getting 4 or 5 chops out of one node, an unlucky or multiple unlucky streaks could make that famous 83% seem like 20% or less. Which when you boost your HQ % to 50% you really then think, perhaps the universe is indeed infinite.

Take note at how these complaints are all part of having something to do to begin with to have to actually complain and nothing seems to really point at the core of the game. Nothing is breaking immersion yet. There's been so MUCH to do in terms of professions I have not touched my PVE class in a week and that is totally fine.

Strange no?

Truny the Complainer

Botany

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 18:31:00 +0000

I haven't been on WoW other than doing a brewfest dungeon for a mount I realized I already had? Still logging in every two weeks for my free ilvl 700 piece, then switfly logging out.

Thinking back to even Mists I had asked myself: "What would it EVEN take for me to quit? There's so much to do and progress in, and our guild was a thriving hub of activity and excitement".

The answer is: WoW is the WoW killer. Never before have I not even WANTED to log in but not even CARE to log in for weeks at a time. This usually happens for me during the extreme content droughts at the VERY end of an expansion. WoD had this feeling a few weeks after hitting 100 and realizing that other than actually raiding there was very little I could do to prepare for raids.

Instead, I have been putzing (this is totally a word no?) about in FF14. Our free company (guild) managed to sweep up a small house in Gridania by the waterfall and I am now in charge of the garden, trying to cross breed rare herbs and minions (such as the Garlic Jester).

I haven't been doing much in FF either to be honest. I do not run dungeons much other than out of necessity or to help out a guildie, but I HAVE been keeping very busy levelling up my profession classes.

By default I chose to play as a Black Mage, but I haven't touched my "PVE" class in weeks. I have been playing as my gatherer and crafter: Botanist & Culinarian. Otherwise known as "Disciples of the Land/Hand".

You see there are 'daily' missions where you create or gather things from your different professions and they give you massive amounts of exp, double if you turn in high quality items. You are also able to make decent but not mind-blowing money on all the peripheral items you gather on the way.

No there are no free gil handout missions like in WoW.

I am still far from end-game of any sorts but am enjoying flying around doing my gathering, seeing the rare proc material nodes, ephemeral nodes, seeing my gear and skills slowly improve. Good times.

Truny the Botanist

"I Started in Warlords"

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 18:46:00 +0000

Let's look to the future. Just like how I am seeing the youth of today as my employees of tomorrow I must start adapting business processes to eventually be a "fit" for them while transitioning everyone on board for a smooth ride as well.

Obviously Blizzard did not have this vision with WoD, but what will be of the players who started their WoW adventure in WoD?

Will they be jaded Vanilla elitists?
Semi jaded BC elitists?
Entitled Wrath Babies? (That's me)
Immature Pandarian Panda Children?
??? Warlordians?

*Yes I skipped Cataclysm cause let's be honest we all wish that didn't exist right? Or at least Blizzard does.

I actually have very little idea/discussion of this.

1. They'd expect beautiful art.
2. They'd expect amazing cut-scenes at the end of all zones to tie everything together.
3. They'd expect beautiful and intricate dungeons.
4. I THINK they would be slightly confused as to why their professions disappear at level 90. Unless they PAY to start at 90...
5. They would have five expansions worth of content fresh in their heads.

But so do we all.

Truny the WTF

Forced: Flying

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 19:03:00 +0000

I saw an interesting comment the other day that was along the lines of:

"Blizzard is forcing me to do content that I do not enjoy in order to fly".

Uhh. Ok wait let's look at the Pathfinder achievement required for flight:

Explore Draenor: Run around and explore all areas. Ok so you don't like exploring.
Securing Draenor: Doing the major apexis quests. If you didn't care for the original quest or used these quests to obtain your first 4,000...I could give you this. Almost.
Tanaan Diplomat: Pretty much means play 6.2.
Loremaster of Draenor: Most people would have 3-4 zones completed at max level. Play through the story. Oh you don't enjoy story, or questing.
Master Treasure Hunter: I guess the rewards are boring and you don't have natural curiosity to click on an interesting purple box.

Now I get that we used to just be able to buy flying and be done with it, but no one is "forcing" you to essentially "play the game". If you don't enjoy the game you won't enjoy flying? Am I missing something here?

Truny the Confused and Forced

FF14 vs WoW: How Dare They!

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 18:32:00 +0000

In the current lull of WoW I have moved over to FF14 (Famfrit). Other than raiding I have "nothing" to do. DONT tell me to go farm mounts or pets, I already got my 250 mount achieve and have all the pets that I have already wanted so there can be no more joy that can be wrangled until the 300 mount achieve is active.

I've been playing my Black Mage in FFXIV (BLM) on and off for a LONG time since when WoW is good, its really good and takes precedence. But as of late I have progressed a lot on my BLM and I'm looking forward to completing all of the 2.0+ content patches to be able to start in Heavensward (HW).

So in my push to finish off the main story quests (MSQ) that drive the game from level 1-60, I thought I would have been in HW content last week, but there's just so much "other" stuff to do that I actually want to progress in that I sometimes end up doing those instead of just power questing through the main story.

I understand that I am in two completely different places currently:

WoW: Full end game, have all classes and professions and have collected everything in game. It is difficult to appease a player like me with fun filled activities. I get it.

FF14: At level 50 but STILL working towards the story, no maxed professions, 1 high level class, all other classes open for trial.

However, with my current time in FFXIV I have encountered some serious issues and I am personally offended by FF14 for doing the following:

1. How dare they have an MSQ that FORCES me to do content. Why are they TELLING me what's going on in each zone and trying to connect me to characters? And how dare they give me something to look forward to as I progress through the game! Ugh.

2. How dare they put professions as individual jobs. You have to change gear to swap to say Botanist, Goldsmith, Miner, etc, and how dare they have such an intricate crafting system where the professions are intertwined, requiring materials from other classes. And how DARE they have daily supply/provisioning missions FORCING me to either craft or gather certain items from all the professions I've learned, and FORCING me to get HQ items for double the exp and company seals. I actually had to GO OUT into the world and gather. What is this a play on immersion in an MMORPG? Oh wait...

Also how dare they make professions so lucrative for earning gil, FORCING me to play a profession. Why not just hand out gil via our retainers everyday.

3. Also, how dare they have retainers. Two to be precise. They act as our personal storage, AH sellers, and also have their own class and personality and can be sent on "Ventures" using "venture" coins which you earn through doing leves or trading them via company seals. How DARE they force me to do leves and farm seals to get ventures! You can choose what type of venture based on retainer class and they come back with random FUN treasures. How dare they be fun!

4. How dare they have scenarios that aim to teach the playerbase how to play and to deal with mechanics at an EARLY LEVEL. This allows low level noobs to understand the game and prevents me from judging them. These are scenarios that teach how to handle adds, staying out of bad, handling certain color adds, avoid boss thresholds/spells. Why are you so useful? Just make a proving grounds where someone ALREADY needs to be good to pass it. Pah. And then only gate content that doesn't even require proving grounds.

5. How dare they make old content relevant! At high level, there are a variety of dungeon roulettes that queue you into old dungeons/trials/leves and reward you with current tier equivalent of valor points. Also how DARE they have a reward token to reward players for doing content. Just make all loot RNG. There are old level 50 world "hunts" that also reward current level 60 prizes that FORCE people to do old content. Ridiculous!

6. How dare they make Black Mage feel like such a nuke compared to others, and it is very easily distinguishable. They should balance all classes ASAP!

Have you tried out FF? What else do you think should offend me?

Kwuppy Turby the Offended

You Don't Matter in WoW If..

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:18:00 +0000

Trend Report

According to the extremely extreme elitists, you don't matter in WoW if:

1. You didn't start in vanilla, preferably beta.
2. You didn't personally open the gates of AQ.
3. You're not in the world first guild. Close seconds do not count.
4. You liked any aspect of MoP (Gross, Pandas = Automatic Bad Game)
5. You aren't in the top 10 arena teams.

End.

Truny the WTF

World of Warcraft: Legion - Semi Knee-Jerk Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 18:26:00 +0000

This was the game everyone has been waiting for and wanted and what Wrathion had predicted back in MoP: The Burning Legion returns!

As a warlock I am supposed to be ultra-hyped for this new xpac, as I adore everything demonic and with the introduction of Demon Hunters, what will happen to the Demo Warlock spec? 2 classes that can turn into demons? If so I demand we get to become more "castery" demons while the Demon Hunters be melee demons and we can all have demon dance offs!

Due to the lackluster taste WoD left in many of our mouths, my initial reaction to this xpac announcement was:

"Hey all you 'I started in BC' folk, come love us again"

Artifact Weapons

Aka: We don't need to design/animate for weapon models for the entire xpac. This saves resources on the business side yet I do commend the team for adapting what I loved about LOTRO and that is a weapon that grows with you.

It appears WoW's weapons are not as indepth in terms of customizing them with runes but there are talent trees tied in, hopefully not as shallow as our own "every 15 levels "talents"".

Even with the multiple skins, as long as one other person has it then it is not "cool"/unique and if everyone is wielding an artifact of Legend.....is this a single player game or an MMO?

Artifact weapons immediately gives every single person "something to do", though how they manage how far/fast you can grind up your weapon may become a concern. Eg. People who play 24/7 may have their weapon maxed before we've even downloaded the game.

I know personally this would already make me want to run dungeons since there's a slow stream of "progress", perhaps this will fill the Valor Point void as WoD certainly lacked any sense of external character progression outside of the RNG based raids.

Are there meaningful caps to how fast weapons can be ground out? Are they tied to our level? Could be interesting but need more info on how the weapon progression works.

Also I expect a HUGE release of all the warlock info especially how Demo is changing.

Demon Hunters

Sounds cool I'll make one but what of Demonology Warlocks? Dat double jump tho.

Honor Hall

As a warlock, why would I want to hang out with other warlocks? I hate them they steal my cloth gear, heck fewer people should play warlocks.

Seriously though, I hope we get demons as our champions. You know what just copy what FF14 does with retainers a lot of issues would have been resolved if LOTRO had been copied many years ago.

The game has seriously lacked class identity with the culling of skills and all that jazz. Class halls may bring meaning back to the various classes and it is a great concept to have all the different classes united under one single purpose.

Maiev is Back

She was my favourite hero in WC3 and I occasionally visit her in her prison in old Outlands so it'll be nice to catch up again.

My Most Hyped and Hence Bolded Point

TRANSMOG SPACE! See as a warlock, I NEED every single 1H sword, 1H wand, Off-Hand, Staff for myself, and every 2H mace, 2H sword, 2H axe, polearm for my Wrathguard.

Depending on how this plays out this may open up all 160 of my void storage slots and at LEAST 200 of my bank slots! HYPE!

Unanswered Questions

What of professions? Are they still gimped?
Are factions meaningful?
New spells/abilities? Talent tree revamps?
Can we start flying at 110? I don't mind the grounded content though.
Why Dalaran again? Oh well.
Any intent to change the "drop in drop out" attitude of the community?
Any new battle pets?
New mounts that will blow our minds?
Scenarios return?
Honor hall invasions?
Remove x-realm zones???
How's exploration?
Is gear going to be not bull-shit RNG with crap secondary stats? Where an ilvl 640 may be better than a 665?

Overall

Hype Level 4.5/10

I have a borderline skeptical good feeling about this expansion but due to the blah that is WoD right now I bet the hype won't hit until actual game play. We also need more info.

Truny for the Legion

How to Use Damage and Healing Meters Properly

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 19:19:00 +0000

You know I don't think this is talked about enough considering the ubiquity of meters in WoW.

While a lot of players may use meters simply to confirm their existence and dominance over others, the real benefit of meters is to act as a tool to down difficult encounters. Meters are also PUBLIC to your group assuming they have a meter, and hence they can see how efficient or effective you are at managing encounters.

Just as a preface: Meters Do Not Matter for ANYTHING That is Trivial
(But they do help if someone fails at something that is trivial to find out WHY)

For me that is anything including and below heroic (normal aka the old flex aka fake) raids. The difficulty is just not there to even care. And seriously why is it called "normal"? Stop it. Just don't even. Do you EVEN even? UGH.

If running time-walking or a regular 5 man, just turn the damn thing off, nothing drastic is going to happen because someone did not do one of the trivial mechanics.

Damage Meters Example:

P1: 65,000 DPS
P2: 30,000 DPS
P3: 28,000 DPS

If you're just using throughput gauging, it may seem that P1 is the superior player. But it all depends on the encounter.

Example 1:

True: If this was a single target, no movement no encounter Patchwerk type fight.

Example 2:

False: If this encounter required DPS to manage adds. Further details reveal:

P1: 98% Damage on boss. 2% damage on adds.
P2: 75% Damage on adds. 25% damage on boss.
P3: 80% Damage on adds. 20% damage on boss.

You can now see that P2 and P3 have contributed more to the encounter, assuming the adds were a critical piece of progression, if P1 had helped perhaps the encounter would have been more smooth. It all DEPENDS. Perhaps they were ASSIGNED as the boss nuker. In that case, just compare P2 and P3, and you'll see everything was fine.

So the next time someone tries to flaunt their amazing abilities, maybe see if they even helped with any critical components of the encounter.

This is also why classes that can simultaneously blow up adds AND the boss seem to always do better than those who can't. If your class can, figure it out.

Healing Meters Example:

P1: 40,000 HPS
P2: 35,000 HPS
P3: 30,000 HPS

Hard to say right? It all depends on the class and the role. If someone is assigned to solely heal group AOE damage, they'd have a bit more heals than the healer assigned to perhaps a very geared tank.

Example 1:

P1: 40% pure heals. 60% overheals.
P2: 80% pure heals. 20% overheals.
P3: 50% pure heals. 50% overheals.

Looking from this example, P1 was probably healing inefficiently or wasting a lot of mana. P2 was on spot and P3 may be under-geared and trying to over-compensate by being inefficient, hence the overheals. If P1 was being a bit more efficient, P3 may also have been able to save mana. Without BEING a healer you can already see the synergy of the three healers in my imaginary raid here.

I found healing meters to be more of a personal measurement than anything. We are interested in total uptime of all heals including HoTs, which is important for resto druids. You should be aiming for 99%+ uptime of Lifebloom and Rejuv. Unless you need the bloom, NEVER let it drop off EVER. If you're out of range, cast it on yourself. Internalize its timing so you don't need to watch those silly heal helper addons.

Mana management also used to be a fun side-game. There are some who prefer being at full mana all the time, and those who prefer to deplete it all. I like both. Make it move with the boss' HP. If things are going well then keep it cool, as the fight progresses, step up those heals a bit, get a little bit less comfortable with low health. Whatever floats your healing boat.

Numbers Lie

Ok, don't, but they definitely do not paint the entire picture unless you are using all the correct numbers. I personally apply a mental metric that weighs all of what I have mentioned above to give "real" performance relative to everyone else.

You're undergeared, but did relatively well for your ilvl AND stayed out of bad? Well I will rank you as someone who pumped out more damage but died before execute phase. EXECUTE PHASE is what you live for why are you dying before it? Go out in a blaze of glory AFTER!

TL;DR

NO F*CK YOU GO READ IT!

1. Use meters more smartlier.
2. Damage TAKEN and mitigated and overall utility factors into performance (just like real life).
3. Have a layout of how the ideal [Role] would perform in any given encounter. And then gauge your performance by adhering to that vision.

If anything, if you're staying out of bad, you KNOW so you don't need meters to tell you that. If you interrupted or dispelled, YOU KNOW. Use a meter if you wish to gauge your progression, see if any tweaks made any improvement.

USE IT FOR IMPROVEMENT. Not dick measuring. Learn to read the different metrics and the next time someone pulls out that obnoxious 10 person list, retort them and tell them to pipe the fuck down no one cares.

Truny the Unmetered

Human Interaction a Core Issue of WoW?

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 18:45:00 +0000

I'm not sure if this entry will end up being a WoW post or a real-life post. Let's see where it takes us.

Just like in human life, things aren't fun without the struggle. A lot of the struggle points of WoW have been removed and padded as quality of life improvements. Some examples include:

Dungeon finder: No need for manual human interaction, if this remained on the local realm, we may still have a reason to talk to each other.

Solved: Long wait times.
Removed: Human interaction.

CRZ: Implemented to "revive" dead zones but I still think this is the single worst decision of the game. More people = more competition, and it also perpetuates the idea that people from other realms are acceptable (eg via Dungeon Finder, except we'll never see them again).

Solved: ??? (See the issue is why do I even care if there are other people since quests are so easy anyways)
Removed: Ability to find any rares. Ever.

LFR: This was implemented well. The fights were still challenging and mechanics still needed to be adhered to. The gear stealing and kidnapping was toxic at best, but it did feel like a mini-raid. Now it has devolved to just existing.

Solved: Allowing more players to see end-game content.
Removed: All common sense, the innate sense of accountability, and human interaction.

Profession Changes: We no longer have to grind useless greens to be DE'd to level up, but now we don't really get to craft ANYTHING but epics which are gated through gated materials so most people just don't. Garrisons also allow you to take on the role of any other profession you may not have. Do you even even?

Solved: Useless greens making?
Removed: Professions itself. Human interaction.

All of those points DO make the game "easier" and when dripped in slowly we don't realize how it is affecting the entire game as a whole once they all come together.

The trend I am seeing is that manual human interaction is a burden that needs to be resolved within WoW. Perhaps if this was the core issue, then we should have designed for improving human interaction, giving richer experiences (whatever that means), rather than try to push them under the rug.

If We Start Fresh

We need to remedy the "pop in pop out" attitude that has shown a massive increase since the inception of LFD and LFR.

Even with the group finder for a RAID we see people just leave group when things aren't going their way. We've seen people stealth leave to repair without letting anyone know. Is the excuse that they are REALLY uncomfortable typing? This is the perfect place to start practicing!

I usually try to thank everyone for good times. This still exists luckily. Even so, I know I'll never see these people again UNLESS they were in our realm!

We have been running dungeons in complete silence for far too long. No longer do we need to explain mechanics. I used to have copy and paste mini paragraphs for each and every Cata heroic dungeon boss. It may have been excessive but people were learning and questions were asked. There was some "rich interaction" going on up in this bish.

If you remove the struggle as I was saying before, there's nothing really to talk about. We no longer see endearing progression posts about struggling on a raid boss or trying to gear up or learning to excel in our classes. I am part of the problem.

Just with the latest raid, I could care less what the bosses are called and all the mechanics are "seen this done that", our only struggle is not one-shotting the encounters going in blind.

The argument is "If you don't need LFR, leave it alone and let the people who do utilize it be". But my argument is that the current LFR does not exactly perpetuate or support a high-skill-base requirement. I'm not saying everyone needs to be extremely skilled, but if there isn't any content that ENCOURAGES stepping up one's game (which is what raids are here for right?) then what's the point of the game (which you and I just lost dammit).

What confuses me is if you aren't coming out of any encounter, be it a quest or a dungeon boss or raid boss asking yourself "how could I have improved, or what could I have done differently" then what is even the point?

WAIT!

This is interesting: Has recount ruined WoW? Recount is the issue!!

If you down a boss, that's good right? No! You have to be the person who contributed the MOST with the lowest burden to healers. OH MY GOODNESS. It IS recount!

Why must we derive "fun" out of "winning" against our own companions? This is gross!

I've always asked "why do people even play if they aren't top DPS/HPS?", because I AM THE PROBLEM!

Perhaps It's Too Late

Just find a good guild and hide and don't utilize anything that takes away your ability to manually interact with others. And uninstall all recount/Skada type damage meters. I shall uninstall it the next time I log on.

Turny the WTF

Patch 6.2 A Month Later

noreply@blogger.com (Truny) — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 19:03:00 +0000

Let's get right into it. 6.2's been out for about a month and a lot of people are already done with the island content. This is scary.

Shipyards

I apologize to the shipyard. The thing is, the old command table set such a bad precedent that I say that the shipyard SHOULD HAVE been what was released at 6.0. A side-activity that requires a bit more thought, not the MAIN attraction. I don't mind it, except why is the boat command table now down by the docks? We are lazy. Come on.

Timewalking

I did one, healed it with Valany'r. Seems easy peasy and yeah it's for alts who need 660. Which means this is for 2nd tier alts.

Mythic Dungeon

Did it once as a 663 Boomkin, it was rough. Then we did it again on our main raiding team of 690+ and it was fairly cake-walk. But it rewards 685-700 so, not that great vs raid. They are "challenging" in that there's a lot of damage everywhere and you have to follow mechanics....which is what heroics SHOULD have been??

The Dailies

Honestly I don't mind them now. They are a bit repetitive but its better than nothing. I hit exalted with the bird and faction faction, just waiting on this week's Saberon quest to reset and I'll be ready to fly. But why?

Apexis

Going into 6.2 I started to hoard apexis crystals about a week prior. Only ended up with 10k so as of this weekend I finally saved up enough gems to buy the pretty bird. Now what? It was definitely easier than grinding out Emperor Shaohao's mount?

Hellfire Citadel

Actually I should do a quick guide on it even though I barely pay attention. We are I think five or six bosses into flex and progress is progress so we can't ask for too much.

So here's my mini guide on what I remember:

Boss 1: Lots of Stuff
Kill the thing, then the dude, then the machines and do it for like 45 minutes and try not to fall asleep and you randomly will just win.

Boss 2: Metroid Prime
Kill it and dodge things. Lasts for like 20 minutes, put on a good show you like.

Boss 3: Dodge Rune Stack Hands AOE.
Name says it all. Fall asleep until you get to cast your amazing AOE.

Boss 4: Council of Trolls or Something
Kill the big one, bring others low, kill the blade one then kill the caster one. And dodge things. Pet classes are nice, make your pet do all the work as you clean the house.

Boss 5: Adds Bloods Go In
Kill adds, go when you are marked and leave a clear projectile path, and go in if you have to go in. Look for the adds spawning by the side and the debuff on you and the bloods. Dodge the green thing. Ezpz.

Boss 6: Adds and together and stack and drop it good and tank add 2-3 seconds get out.
And also dodge the swirl while doing all that.

That's about it for this patch.

Truny the That's It