Feral Blood

Dead Chick Dollar Bills: Making Mad Dough in Draenor

2015-06-18T18:50:00.000+02:00

I'll start off by stating the obvious; Dead Chick likes her gold. Dead Chick likes it even more when said gold can be used to curtail Real Life spending. And so, while the pursuit of the shiny, yellow stuff is pretty much a permanent anyway, the advent of the WoW token has kicked even the lazy bear into earning mode.

Between cross-realm zones, the merging of servers and the universal access to materials provided by the garrison, quite a bit has changed when it comes to making mad bank. Materials that were once very valuable are dirt cheap, even a low population server will have some hardcore competition on the auction house and leveling up new characters simply does not reward the same amount of cash it used to. So, how does one keep the cash register ringing in Draenor?

1. Throwback

In their spare time, of which there is little at the moment, Bear and Dead Chick like to run old instances. This is a good idea for many reasons; whether you're after achievements you never got, pets, mounts, transmog items, whatever. However, Bear and Dead Chick like to make bank and this is yet another reason why Throwback Thursday - or whatever day you like - is a good idea.

And so every Thursday Bear and Dead Chick rendezvous at Black Temple and work their way up. Why start in Burning Crusade? The needs of starting characters have not changed and, as such, netherweave bags are still in demand and will still net you a tidy profit even if you buy the materials. However, this content offers more than mere cloth. There are also pets to be had here which sell for a bundle and, if you're lucky enough to be on a server with something of a twink scene, the epic gems will sell for a tidy sum. The Eye offers the additional chance at the coveted but elusive Ashes of A'lar while Karazhan still withholds the love and, as such, Dead Chick is still after the Fiery Warhorse's Reins. With travel time, it should take no more than two hours to clear all Burning Crusade raid content and, drops willing, net you a couple thousand if you manage your materials right.

With items vendored, materials stockpiled and the inventory tidied, we work our way up to Wrath raid content. While the gold provided by boss kills has been severely neutered, the items still sell for quite a bit and frostweave cloth can be used for bags. Now, while you can obviously disenchant the items, take note that the auction house is, in my experience, often not your friend when it comes to these sorts of materials. Check your server prices before you partake. Auctionator or TradeSkillMaster is your friend, my lovelies. Keep it up to date and you'll never DE undesirables. Clearing the lot, again, takes two hours at the most.

Cataclysm raid content, in turn, offers much more in immediate revenue. The gold drops on bosses have - as of writing this - not been neutered and will reward up to 200 gold per person per boss. The items vendor for a tidy sum and BoE's are likely. However, depending on your server, these might take some time to sell. Dead Chick is staring at a pair of shoulders from two weeks ago that have yet to adorn a lovely paladin or warrior of the appropriate level. Again, I urge you to manage your materials. Cloth can be sold raw but it is generally much more fiscally prudent to set your tailor to work and make some lovely bags.

Pandaria content is doable up to a certain extent and much of the same rules apply. The rule of thumb, however, is to do everything possible on 25 man heroic to maximize profits.

2. Hunter mode

Rare hunting is a tactic greatly enjoyed and preferred by Dead Chick but despised by Bear as he lacks patience and tenacity. This one can be a time suck depending on your chosen continent. Hunting rares for profit can be done in Northrend, Cataclysm content, Pandaria or even the current Draenor. Personally, this dead chick greatly prefers Pandaria. Low pop, lots of rares, limited respawn timers, shiny drops.

Northrend rares offer a blue item and a bag which contains a little over 20 gold, a stack of frostweave and the occasional eternal. The downside? That shit is spread out, yo. You will spend more time flying around than making it rain. As such, Dead Chick only opts for this content while Bear awaits the Time Lost Proto Drake Dead Chick got several years ago. It's an option but there are better ones out there.

Cataclysm content has a major drawback being that those rares which can serve as hunter pets will net you abso-fucking-lutely nothing but angry hunters whispering you about what a despicable human being you are. I do not recommend.

Pandaria, however, offers the coveted Zandalari Warbringers which offer a chance at a shiny mount - Dead Chick calls hers Charlie -, rep tokens, and bags containing materials from ore to herbs. Kill off the Zandalari Warscouts for the chance at the same, minus the mount. However, Pandaria is now so uninhabited that most rares are aimlessly wandering the lands awaiting the sharp blade of any passerby. Blues, purples, mats, mounts, they've got it all and a stiff breeze is sufficient to end their lonely lives. Even outdoor raid encounters like Oondasta or Galleon are easy enough, take a partner if you're squishy, and offer many goodies. Speaking of Oondasta, clear the island if you have the chance, pets sell and more mounts are always welcome, n'est-ce pas?

Whatever continent you choose, keep NPCScan up to date and manage those materials.

3. Material management

Dead Chick realizes that perhaps "Manage your materials, guys" is a little vague. So let me explain what I mean by that. While you can certainly gather up materials farmer style and throw 'm all up on the auction house for return, there are better ways of keeping the gold flowing. It all boils down to making the most out of what you have. Regardless of the professions you have available, there is almost always something you can do with raw materials to make them more valuable.

For example, the trillium ore harvested from Zandalari Warbringers or Scouts in Pandaria - or farmed the old fashioned way - can be made into Living Steel. You may think "Well, that's old hat" but, at least on our server, it still sells for anywhere between 300 and 400 gold apiece. Set that alchemist to work!

The biggest tip I can give you when it comes to this section is to do your research. Find out what you can do with the materials you have and make sure the finished product is worth the time and effort.

4. The lazy/time efficient way

If you do not have the time or inclination to farm/clear old content, fear not, there are options for you too. Provided you have some crafting professions, you can still make it rain at the mailbox on a daily basis. Cloth is often sold pretty cheaply and can be used - good lord, am I repetitive - to make the shiny... you guessed it, bags. Ore can be made into bars or items, pets and mounts can be crafted, and so on and so forth. You get the idea. Buy 'm cheap and stack 'm high is the thing to remember here.

Don't be afraid to game the auction house. An updated version of Auctionator or TSM will let you know the median price of an item. If you see one that is far below said price, snap that baby up and resell it. To be clear, this tactic is not for beginners, you have to know your server's economy well enough to know whether said item will sell. But everybody starts somewhere so take a gamble every now and then, it might just pay off.

5. Maximizing your garrison

Garrison missions are an easy and almost passive way of netting you a tidy profit. With the level 3 inn, you are able to recruit followers with specific traits, simply select the treasure hunter trait and get those followers on your team. The Masterplan addon makes it incredibly easy and convenient to manage your followers and missions, thus allowing you to prioritize missions that will net you gold or resources you require without lifting so much as a finger.

6. Current mats

When it comes to materials harvested from the garrison or out and about our shiny continent, my experience is that selling said materials is a bit hit and miss. The ease with which we are now all able to harvest these materials means that there is generally an abundance of them. Competition is fierce, prices are nowhere near the bracket in which Dead Chick likes to see 'm. The old standby, however, still holds true. Raw materials are fine but reworked ones are better. And if you have to sell raw materials, make it the ones that are not easily harvested from your garrison. For example, leather takes much longer to produce yet next to no time to acquire in the wild. Half of Bear's current fortune is a shining example of this.

My final tip is to trade Primal Spirits in for whatever is most expensive on the auction house that day. Make those Spirits work for you; whether it's Savage Blood - my preference - or some other crafting mat, don't let them gather dust in your bank!

This essentially concludes some simple, if occasionally time-consuming, ways of making mad bank in Draenor. Now, while I dabble a bit in each section as described, there are two ways that Dead Chick likes to make money that are a bit more involved. These methods require quite a bit of knowledge with regards to your realm's economy as well as at least a basic understanding of the TradeSkillMaster addon. So, let's get on with it, shall we?

The lightning round a.k.a. transmog and pet markets

Before I get crackin' on my long-winded explanation, let me warn you that both of these markets are slow burners. You will not be making money hand over fist on day 1, these markets are where we play the waiting game and play it hard. Still with me? Excellent, let's get started.

To get into the transmog market, your first port of call will be the aforementioned TradeSkillMaster addon. I'm sure there are addons that do similar things and even people with memory so great and knowledge so in-depth that they do not require such a thing but I, my dear readers, have the memory of a syphilitic donkey (I assure you this is funny if you have random medical knowledge and... are a giant dork, moving on!). TSM is by no means the simplest addon you'll ever use but trust me, the initial head-scratching or, if you're me, violent outbursts and swearing, will be worth your while in the end. Make sure you set up the Application part of the addon, this is vital. There are plenty of resources out there to help you set up this addon and learn how to use it so I'm not going to cover that here.

Now, once you've mastered the TSM addon and the wounds incurred from smashing various objects around the house while doing so have healed, you'll need a transmog shopping list. While there are many available online, please note that prices will vary. While it is perfectly fine to use someone else's list, note that you will almost certainly have to change the pricing strategy. Personally, I opt for Phat Lewt's transmog list as his choices are sound and his pricing strategy needs minimal management. Incidentally, he also offers a top-notch guide on how to use the addon we all love to hate here at Feral Blood.

So you're all set up with a nice shopping list and you're staring at a list of shinies that may or may not be being sold below their actual value. You might be tempted - as all first-time transmog sellers are - to simply buy everything under 100% value. Let me tell you, my beloved loot goblins, this is how you end up with a huge stock that you simply cannot shift. This is also where the knowledge of your realm's economy comes in. Whether something will sell or not is always, at least in part, a guessing game. You can, however, hedge your bets. Say you see a nice shiny being sold for half its actual value. Make sure to run the item in question through the auction house to make sure there aren't seven others being sold at the same time. Competition drives the price down and we don't want that. If you mouse over the item, it'll tell you what the realm average daily sold quantity of said item is. Now, this is a bit hit and miss for transmog items because generally there aren't that many floating around but it should still give you something of an idea with regards to whether it will sell or not. Lastly, common sense is your friend; while an extremely expensive item might seem like the way to go, remember that it will take much longer to sell. Opt for a healthy mix of expensive and inexpensive items in your stockpile.

Now that I've used the term stockpile, let me break down the reality of the transmog market for you. You will accrue items like it's going out of style because you need to. To keep money coming in and to adjust to a fluctuating market, you will need to keep a healthy stock of items. A healthy stock of items in the transmog market does not mean thirty or forty. It means hundreds of items. Which is why I will now urge you to invest in a guild bank, it will make your life so much easier.

That concludes the lecture on transmog items. Not because that is all there is to say but because the rest is simply experience. I cannot tell you what to invest in and what to skip over because each realm is different and each seller's strategy is different. I'm afraid this is the point where it's time to choose your own adventure, sweeties.

The pet market lecture is - thank heavens, amirite?! - much shorter. With the advent of the garrison, many things have been made easier, so too the leveling of pets with the acquisition of the pet menagerie. It offers a daily pet battle and, at level 3, it will give you shiny rewards which can include pets. It also rewards tokens which you can redeem for battle pet stones to level up pets or instantly make their quality blue.

To get started, simply peruse your pet journal and pick out the ones that are most valuable. The auction house will be happy to inform you of the value of these pets. Turn 'm blue, level 'm up with stones and toss those babies on the auction house. The more rare pets, however, are often those with low drop rates from raid bosses long since downed or those nasty little buggers who spawn once in a blue moon. On a friday morning. Between the hours of 5 and 5.03. Long story short, some farming may be required. But, and now we've officially come full circle, farming leads to mats which leads to gold. So yay!

The return of Bear and Dead Chick... sort of

2015-04-24T09:48:00.002+02:00

On a dark, cloudy night, Dead Chick and Bear followed their compatriots into the Mogu'shan Vaults to once again battle the merciless dogs that are Stone Guard heroic and, for all intents and purposes, breathed their last.

Or, to be less cryptic, we burned out hard. Changing raiding/guild environments coupled with Real Life - that treacherous bitch - made Bear and Dead Chick decide that now was the time to hang up their raiding mantle. And for many moons, neither was seen atop their Onyxian Drakes in any part of Azeroth.

At long last, a time came when both saw the ultimate legendary drop; the seldom seen Time Off (tm). A new continent wove its siren song into their hearts and minds and soon they were dusting off their mantle and, though finding it a bit tight in the chest, decided to slap that sucker on again.

That's right, y'all, we're back.

Many things have changed and we will update you on said changes in upcoming posts. For now, let us simply state that, while Bear remains, Dead Chick has undergone some changes. We found ourselves lacking in compatriots - read: no guild, yo - and late to the party. As such, compromises had to be made. Which means that, at least for the current tier of raiding, Dead Chick - while retaining the name - is in fact Totem Chick, rolling them HoTs for her newly found compatriots and the perpetually moody bear. Let it never be said that Dead Chick is not flexible. On penalty of death by bear. Seriously, don't say it, Bear has had to listen to my complaining for weeks, the slightest thing could set his furry ass off. And those paws are no joke, son.

Coming soon to a screen near you:

Dead Chick Dollar Bills: Making Mad Dough in Draenor
Bear and Dead Chick: The Leveling Chronicles or How Quickly We Forget, the nubcake variable
The Raiding Mantle: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
The Search for Compatriots
Trial by Fire: Getting our Mojo Back

And much, much more! Stay tuned, kindly readers!

Dead Chick Farming: Pandaria Survival Kit

2012-09-22T20:17:00.000+02:00

As mentioned in a previous post, Dead Chick has gone through quite a lot of preparation for Mists of Pandaria. But most of this preparation was geared towards speedy profession leveling and making a small fortune at the jump-off. There are, however, other preparations that are currently underway that our faithful readers may also find somewhat useful. So let's get crackin'!

I doubt I need to mention my first piece of advice as it is a tactic used by basically everyone I know in the online community. But, for completion's sake, I'll hit you with it anyway. Spend your last moments of Cataclysm filling up your quest log with dailies so you can hand them in for XP when the Pandas take over. Try and limit the amount of travel time needed to and from your chosen quest hubs. You don't want to spend your first twenty minutes in the wonderful world of Pandas zoning in and out of various places to return quests. As the Cataclysm zones are really rather spread out, this is no mean feat. What I plan to do is position myself in the quest hub that contains the largest amount of dailies I've selected. When the first panda pokes his furry nose in our general direction, this dead chick will be hovering over Sanctuary of Malorne, ready to grab some precious XP. Other dailies on my hit list are Tol'Barad, as the quests can be delivered no more than a good step away from the portal, and Deepholm, as there is a portal to Therazane's Throne right there in the Temple of Earth. As such, a few portals and no more than five minutes later, I should be well on my way to level 86. And you can be too!

Now that we have the general advice out of the way, I can get on with the real topic of today's impromptu post. Survival kits. That's right, I actually go through the trouble of making kits for a new character or, in this case, a character I'm planning to level through a new expansion. I do this as to limit time wasted hearthstoning to get materials, reagents or logging between characters for some quick cash. So! Let me take you on a lovely trip to the depths of Dead Chick's insanity with: Pandaria Survival Kits!

Survival Kits for new characters

Whenever I feel that itch to get a new class on the board, the first thing I do is put together a lovely care package for my chosen character. A new character needs quite a few things and I don't particularly enjoy diluting the experience of a new class by constant relogging or running to and from the mailbox for the first hour of its existence. A care package generally includes the heirlooms* for my chosen class. It also includes the very much necessary bags. Everyone needs to put their severed heads and shiny objects somewhere! Some start-up cash for skills, mounts, repairs and the likes can also be found in the package; usually 100 gold covers any new character's initial needs nicely. These would be the obvious bare necessities for any new character.

However, the care package also includes some less obvious items. I tend to include a small stock of linen cloth - getting a jump start on first aid is never a terrible idea -, some low level health potions, ditto mana potions if needed, some low level cooking mats if I intend on leveling cooking for that character and finally some items that may seen a bit random. I include a few potions of water walking and some swim speed potions. There are inevitably going to be quests that happen under water and so it is never a bad idea to give yourself a boost in that area. Even if you've selected a Shaman, it'll be a few levels before your inner Jesus takes over and so your water walking potions certainly won't go to waste.

*As a small note, if you are unable to supply your character with heirlooms for any reason, make sure you don't happen to have a character that is able to craft some low level greens for Protalicious, your shiny level 1 paladin.

Old dogs, new tricks: Survival Kits for mains in Pandaria

So your quest log is full of dailies to be turned in mere seconds after the Pandas put in an appearance. Excellent! But, my friend, there is more that can be done to prepare. That is if you are, like me, insanely concerned about wasting time during those first precious hours. If you've been very clever - and extremely anal about professions - you've stockpiled some Cataclysm materials to grab your first few profession points past 525. This is what I consider bare minimum prep. But, again, Dead Chick likes her contingency plans and so there is a care package sitting in my inventory ready for the trip into a mysterious new world.

First up are, as mentioned, the mats to level my professions neatly stockpiled and ready to be processed for lovely points. Next up is a selection of buff food, these serve more than one purpose. Inevitably killing higher level mobs is going to be a little bit painful and though, as a Death Knight, this isn't a major concern, it never hurts to cover your bases. Bear and Dead Chick also grow tired of questing rather quickly and will, no doubt, begin to yearn for a good instance to cut the tedium that can be the questing experience and it's never a bad idea to buff up as much as possible in a new instance. In this same section, there are the Mythical Healing Potions and, if you need 'm, Mythical Mana Potions, a selection of trinkets - some heavy on avoidance, some heavy on stamina and even a PvP trinket, you never know - some Darkmoon Firewater, a handful of flasks and runescrolls of Fortitude. Here endeth what I lovingly refer to as the "Covering my ass" section.

Then we come to the "minimal annoyance" section. Contained within are things that are situational but useful nonetheless and things I would otherwise have to at the very least travel for. I consider traveling for this purpose a waste of time and so this section of my care package has been put together in the interest of avoiding this. First on the list are Obsidium Skeleton Keys. Everyone will end up with at least one lockbox and unless you're a rogue or happen to be traveling with a rogue, it'll continue to be, that's right, locked. Obviously you have to be a blacksmith to use these and it won't open Ghost Iron Lockboxes but I'm bringing some just in case. Probably useless but, again, Dead Chick is OCD.

Next up, Chef's Hat and the fishing pole + lure of your choice. While you probably won't spend much time fishing or cooking at first, I like to fry up whatever I have the materials for ('cause points, yay!) and, whenever possible, kill time waiting for a respawn by getting some fishing done. Last, but certainly not least, if your class still uses reagents, I'd get a small stash of those too. Though most vendors sell them, you don't want to be in the middle of nowhere only to find you're out of reagents. And don't forget a few Dusts of Disappearance. Though they're replaced by Tome of the Clear Mind at 86, you might need a quick glyph switch before that point.

So, those are the contents of my survival kits. Preparing these, filling up my characters' quest logs with dailies and making a supply of monk glyphs is basically how Dead Chick is spending her last few Cataclysm days. How about you?

We love you like a love song, bosses!

2012-09-21T22:46:00.001+02:00

We'd love to write a post about the Theramore Event but, yanno, there's not much to say. It's pretty damn pointless and, frankly, a waste of the encounter developers' time. So there will be no post concerning that as it would barely fill a paragraph. But, as our faithful readers are still owed a post from the week Bear and Dead Chick missed by moving, we thought we'd give you a little something before the pandas take over!

As avid raiders - OMG you guys must be so sick of that phrase - we enjoy a good retrospective of our favourite encounters/bosses, it generally leads to a rather spirited debate as we tend to disagree on this particular topic quite a bit. In the run-up to Pandaland, we find ourselves discussing this topic more than ever, like at the end of any expansion, really. As previously stated, we like to look back, fight the corners of our much beloved bosses and sigh happily while our armor is being treated for anti-bamboo hassling. So who are our favourite bosses and why? Take it away, Bear!

1. Yogg-Saron
Yogg-Saron in my view is the best boss Blizzard has ever designed. From the 4 variable difficulty settings with the watchers, to the four unique scenarios when you went into Yogg-Saron's brain, the whole thing is just very well designed. There were so many mechanics to watch for, adds to kill in a certain order, debuffs to watch out for and the punishment of being killed by the raid if a player fucked up. The pinnacle of raiding and boss design.

2. Mimiron
Now Mimiron, what an amazing fight! I love this fight, because there was so much going on. Not only did the boss have 4 phases, all entirely different from each other, but there was also the very particular movement the raid had to learn, while dealing with all these mechanics to control the fire and not get overwhelmed. My guild back in the day spent a long time wiping here, but when we finally killed it, it was amazing. Even if I never did get one of his mounts, grrr.

3. Ultraxion
Ultraxion, this fight as a tank is so much fun. Most fights, you tank the boss away from the group, maybe tank swap, and just stand there getting punched in the face. Ultraxion however, always keeps you on your toes and your finger on the taunt button. You're waiting for the other tank to get the debuff so you taunt, then they taunt off of you, then there is the parts when you have to soak and not soak, pressing the button at the very last second to eek out every last bit of DPS you can to help out your raid. The whole thing is just very engaging to a tank, something 90% of bosses fail at. It's nice when someone other than the DPS gets to shine on a boss, Valithria Dreamwalker - whom the Dead Chick will prattle on about in a bit, I bet - is a perfect example of this also.

4. Lich King
For me, the Lich King is a fight I remember fondly, even if my guild in Wrath did not manage to actually kill him when it was current. We fought all the way up to him on heroic, but try as we might he would not fall. He is one of my favourite bosses though because of the very unforgiving mechanics that kept us from killing him. Defile, you had two seconds to move, if you were slow, you made everyone else's lives harder. The valkyr, if the DPS were slow, you were a man down at least. All these unforgiving mechanics and his phases lead to a very challenging and fun fight. I would be lying if I said I did not get sick of it eventually as we had ICC for over a year. It was an encouragement to me not being able to kill him, 'OK, we didn't get him, we have to be better in cataclysm so this does not happen again'. I still haven't killed him on heroic to this day, as I believe as soon as content is outdated with a new tier, or expansion, all the achievements and titles for it should be unobtainable. But he was still a high light of Wrath.

5. Algalon
For me, Algalon is not here because of some amazing fight mechanics, but for the memories associated with him. I'm talking about all the work required to even get to him, he felt like a reward for all your hard work progressing. You spent so much time killing four other very hard bosses on their hardest difficulty mode, simply to look at Algalon, and he was no pushover himself. It was one of the best feelings raiding has given me though, when after all the work and time, you get a look at, and kill this very well designed boss. With the great graphic effects in his room, and his cool speech, just brings back so many memories.This kind of reward boss is something I would love to see a lot more of.

Now, the Dead Chick's thoughts!

1. Halion (Ruby Sanctum)
Now hear me out. I am by no means praising the design on this one. This boss was a pain in the ass on heroic and I am certainly not listing him for a coolness factor. For me, he will always be remembered fondly purely because of the work that went into taking him down on heroic. Way back when Bear and Dead Chick were Tree and Resto Shammy, this boss was an after-hours attempt that took us well into the early morning and eventually got us a server third. Blood, sweat, tears and a whole lot of rage went into this one and the feeling when he finally collapsed under our joint efforts is hitherto unmatched. Few people defeated the encounter or even bothered when it was current and that made it all the more attractive to us. We picked our very best and marched into the Ruby Sanctum hoping to make even a small dent in Halion's duplicitous scales. And though many, many skeletons crunched under our feet as we gathered our loot, it was one of those incredibly happy moments that Halion, in my mind, will forever wear a halo.

2. Algalon (Ulduar)
This one is coolness factor. Though I didn't get to do him when he was current content - my guild at the time wasn't particularly proficient - and so was unable to enjoy him in his full glory, he was still quite the experience. For me personally, a boss has never managed to set the mood quite as well as Algalon. It wasn't really the mechanics - though they were quite awesome -, it was the heart behind it, the idea. I still frequently listen to his speech and break out in goosebumps. Major epic appeal.

3. Professor Putricide (Icecrown Citadel)
Another one that is dear to me because of personal memories. Tree and Resto Shammy's guild used to do alt runs on fridays. We'd all have a drink, chat, laugh at each other's mistakes and generally have a good time. The guys who played our main tanks at the time thought it would be a hilarious idea to have my little bear cub tank La Putricide. I will happily admit I was utterly convinced it would be an unmitigated disaster, never really having tanked a raid boss before. However, by some miracle the encounter went particularly smoothly, shocking everyone, especially myself. Though it was another year or two before I officially changed mains to Dead Chick, she was very much born during that encounter.

4. Valithria Dreamwalker
I'm an overly critical person and as such I don't frequently lavish compliments onto Blizzard but this fight was a healer's dream. For once, the health machines got to shine and boy, did they shine bright if they applied themselves. Blizzard, honey, more fights like this would be appreciated. Though I'm no longer Resto Shammy, it'd be nice if the healers got more opportunities to shine. Sadly, raids forget too easily how powerful their backup is. They should get the limelight more often. They are too often seen as background players and don't get the compliments they deserve. If my healers are reading this, you guys rock. Just FYI.

5. Ultraxion
Giant purple dragon, how much fun you are from a tank's perspective. Between the frequent tank swapping and the button-pressing, it is not a challenging mechanic but it certainly keeps us punching bags busy. Tanking can be a dreadfully boring endeavor when all you do is stand there, soak and occasionally move the boss around. But this one managed to keep us on our toes and taught us to communicate even better - if such a thing is possible. Much love, purple dragon. Much love.

What about you? What's your favorite encounter? What bosses have particularly fond memories attached?

Shiny and New: 5.0 Changes

2012-09-19T21:26:00.001+02:00

Bear and Dead Chick have at long last finished relocating - though many drones still need their red tape cutting - and we've finally found the time to familiarize ourselves with 5.0 changes. Huzzah! There are quite a few things we'd like to discuss so to keep things organized we'll split them up into sections, as Bear lacks organization and Dead Chick tends to ramble on. Let us put on our critic's hat!

General
For once, we'll start off with the silver lining. We're big fans of ambient occlusion; the game looks much more stylized and just generally looks far better than it did. So kudos on that. Other departments, however, are a bit less of a pleasant surprise. The spellbook, for example, is a bit of a state. Yes, it's alphabetical but everything is shoved into one tab and it just doesn't feel to us to be particularly tidy. But then, to be entirely fair, we here at Feral Blood mostly play blind, we know where our skills are and haven't really looked at them since initially speccing our characters. So perhaps we're more peeved at having blank spots on our bars where certain skills used to be and having to go looking for what they were when we're not even 100% on what the icons look like.

Glyphs, however, aren't as much of a personal grievance. We're a bit exasperated with the shifting from six to nine and back again. However, this is not our main issue with the glyph system as it's been implemented for Pandaland. What bothers us is that now your choices matter very little. There are a small handful of options that are extremely situational but in the grand scheme of things, the choices you make in the glyph department will impact your gameplay/DPS/healing/survivability very little if at all. The minor glyphs are even mostly cosmetic. And while minor glyphs have always been mostly cosmetic, we fail to understand what the point was of condensing them back down to six or even having them at all when what you choose rarely impacts how you play.

The new talent system isn't currying favor with us either. There are some choices that are obvious, others that are quite difficult. Making a choice between Lichborne and Purgatory isn't particularly easy and largely depends on what kind of foe one is facing. Which is fine in essence but it does mean that frequent respeccing will be necessary. There are many choices that seem inconsequential or just unfitting; a minor speed increase or choices that only benefit PvP. Dead Chick has, other than having to respec to fit the situation, very little to complain about in this department but talent trees for those classes that are able to fulfill very different roles, like druids, shamans, paladins, etc., seem to have tiers that contain talents which aren't always useful for your chosen role. But Bear will elaborate on this further later on.

We're a bit saddened by content in 5.0. Namely because there isn't any. We have no access to the Theramore event nor are we able to conduct pet battles or even collect pets. Other than taking a tour through the new and improved Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance, there isn't really much to do once you've selected your talents and gotten used to changes to your class mechanics. While we understand that Blizzard is giving us time to get used to the changes, there is still quite some time left until Pandaland actually makes an appearance and the last few months have already left us in a lurch as to what to do on our beloved game. Dragon Soul has long since lost its appeal and we're really quite finished catching up on long-neglected reputation. Even Dead Chick's lust for farming dissipated quite some time ago. After an evening of test-driving various specs and comparing the results, we were really quite finished with what 5.0 had to offer. What we're basically saying here, Blizzard, is that you're taking far too long to release new content. We've had Dragon Soul since December and it's September. This is essentially why you're losing subscribers, the exact same thing happened with Icecrown Citadel and it would appear you still have not drawn your conclusions.

But before we start to froth at the mouth, let's move on to a class-specific review of what's changed, shall we? Take it away, oh fluffy one!

Bear Rawr

Playing a bear has not changed that much since the patch, you just have to make sure you're watching your resources more than before. When you get enough rage you press an ability, like Savage Defense or Frenzied Regeneration. You just have to keep yourself alive, threat is noting to worry about nowadays. Other than this your rotation has not changed that much; aside from no longer having to press Pulverize every now and then. Keep up Savage Roar which is now part of Thrash, and spam Mangle and Lacerate. In short just watch your resources and keep yourself alive, simple but it's fun as you now have more to press in a fight after you have threat. Before you only had to really press cooldowns on big damage spikes, now you have to press abilities to keep yourself alive.

On talents; as a Druid it feels like I could take none of these talents and perform just as well. The druid talent tree is mostly a case of talents that are either incompatible with my chosen role, inconsequential or PvP up until level 90, where the only really useful ability is. Any talent tree that gives this feeling of not changing anything whether you choose some or don't, is not working in my view. Sure, you'll miss a small heal or be a fraction of a second slower getting to the target. That's the only difference it'll make. The whole thing just feels like Blizzard have chosen the play style and you just make your sea form pretty or move a tiny bit faster by your own choice.

An annoyance I now have with the UI is caused by the new account wide pet/mount system. When you mouse over a pet/mount on a vendor you already have, the UI doesn't tell you. You have to manually look it up to make sure you aren't purchasing a duplicate. I noticed this on the Darkmoon Fair pet/mount vendor, I had to check which pet I was missing as the UI doesn't tell me by itself. I wish they would hot fix this with a message similar to 'You already have this mount, but you can buy a duplicate', would save a bit of time for the players.

As far as the content of 5.0, I know it was just the systems patch before Pandas but it wouldn't have hurt Blizzard to put something in to give us something to do. We have had Dragon Soul for way too long, and on top of it being on heroic farm for months, the instance as a whole for me was boring from day one. Not a single new boss model, environment, or any fun boss mechanic, with the exception of Ultraxion.

Bring on Pandas as soon as possible and lets hope they plan things better this expansion concerning raids, and at the end of the expansion so we don't have the same raid for a year.

Dead Chick Drivel

Where to begin... Quite a few changes to the Blood tree, most of which don't really impact play style too much. We can still keep ourselves alive relatively easily, still have a fair amount of options in that department. Let's start with the talent tree. Roiling Blood is particularly useful for AoE tanking, as any Death Knight worth their salt should already know. It's currently my first tier choice because, well, I'm lazy. As there are a few trash packs in Dragon Soul and I still do the occasional random for trade goods bought with Justice Points, it comes in handy. Plague Leech is obviously the first choice when it comes to single target but as it's about to be leveling time, I'm sticking with Roiling Blood until Panda raids hit the scene.

The second tier is a bit of a situational choice. I went for Lichborne not because of its temporary immunity to sleep, fear and charm effects but because it turns you undead thus making it possible to heal yourself with Death Coil. Time it with a fully charged Runic Power bar and you can, and I cannot stress this point enough, actively save yourself a lot of grief rather than waiting for a passive ability to kick in. Purgatory, however, has the ability to save you from certain death and, as such, can be incredibly useful in the right situation. This is not a bad talent by any means, it is simply not useful to me in any of the current encounters. But I fully expect to use it at a later date.

The third tier is an obvious choice for Asphyxiate if there is interrupting to be done, Chillblains works great for add duty and/or kiting whereas Death's Advance helps our mobility along nicely. I tend to shift between Asphyxiate and Death's Advance. On tier four I prefer to have an oh shit button rather than a continual minor healing process so Death Pact was, again, not a difficult choice. This brings me to Blood Tap. While Runic Empowerment is obviously the best DPS talent on this tier (if you game it, which the lovely people at EJ explain much better than I ever could), the fact that Blood Tap allows you to store the ability to reactivate depleted runes and, as such, allow you to save up during low damage moments and spend during spikes, it's the best way to go for fights with predictable damage. Also important to note is that Blood Tap also works for Death Coils used to heal or shield. So when you mess up, have no cooldowns available or your healers are otherwise occupied, you can Lichborne, toss some Death Coils on yourself and then Blood Tap for one or two Death Strikes, Runic Power and charges permitting. This does, of course, mean that you will have to keep an eye on the amount of charges on Blood Tap so they do not go to waste but this can be done quite easily with a macro or Power Auras.

I can't stress enough that there is nothing wrong with the talents that I did not choose and this certainly isn't a lecture on how all Death Knights or even all Blood Death Knights should spec. Environment and encounter is incredibly important when it comes to how you spec, certain things will work miracles in certain situations whereas others will fall flat. The choices listed are those that work best for me right now. Given another situation, my tree will look very different. And as should yours.

And that is what Bear and Dead Chick have learned from their 5.0 adventure. What about you? What do you like/dislike about your new abilities?

Presenting: The Considerate Tank!

2012-09-02T13:47:00.001+02:00

We've already discussed that certain players in LFR and LFD have very little consideration for the remainder of the group and how it dissuades aspiring tanks from going into lower level instances thus effectively causing a shortage of tanks at endgame level. But! What we would like to discuss today is the flip-side of the argument. We here at Feral Blood have a bone to pick with some of our brothers and sisters in arms. Because it is not just DPS or Healers that are committing atrocities in groups and raids.

Both of us come from a healer background. Dead Chick has played every healing class - with the exception of a Holy Priest as it simply fails to hold any interest - at max level and Bear has played both a restoration shaman, druid and a Holy priest. Between the two of us, we have every healer covered. How is this relevant, you ask? Generally we advise aspiring tanks to walk a mile in a healer's shoes. Why? Because it will help you better understand your weaknesses and why sometimes, as much as you might not like to hear it, the wipe was indeed your fault. Playing a healer is, in our opinion, an important part of preparing to play a tank. You will learn to understand where particular kinds of tank are weak, where they are strong, what kind of damage they take, what they can survive and what they can't. And you will learn where the strengths and weaknesses of different healing classes are as well.

Why is this important? As tanks, I think we all have an inherent tendency to consider ourselves immortal, whether we're barely geared for Hour of Twilight Heroics or in full tier 13 Heroic gear. We all figure "We've got cooldowns, yes we do!" and if something goes wrong, must have been the healer's fault. We're here to tell you this is very much not the case. While there are poor healers out there and on occasion, it certainly is possible they themselves were not geared or skilled enough for the encounter, there is no excuse for a tank not making liberal use of their abilities to relieve some of the pressure on the healer's shoulders. You have to understand that the group's healer is just that; the group's. Not just yours. He/she has the entire group to look after. If there is a vulnerable caster taking a big hit of AoE, you don't want to be in a situation where that caster is sacrificed because you couldn't be arsed to pop up Barkskin to buy the healer a crucial few seconds.

I mean, we understand, we're the wall of flesh and armor between our more squishy compatriots and certain death, we hold the line, etcetera. But we feel that, especially as tanks, we must keep in mind that if it weren't for the aid of those behind us, we wouldn't be holding that line for very long, now would we? This basically goes back to our previous plea for symbiosis. Work together. Your healer is not your enemy, he/she is not purposefully refusing to heal you or doing a less than spectacular job simply to spite you. He/she is trying, you may just not be as geared as you think you are. Don't take offense when they plead for cooldowns or crowd control, it is not personal. Helping them helps you. Whether they aren't in fabulous gear themselves or you aren't, cooldowns and/or crowd control can make all of your lives easier so there is no reason to throw a fit. And even if, like Bear and Dead Chick, you are in heroic tier 13 and feel pretty crush-proof, don't be too proud to pop a cooldown or ask for a particularly nasty mob to be trapped just in case. No healer is ever going to shout at you for being too easy to heal.

Respect each other. It doesn't matter whether this is a healer you just met trying to cap your points for the week or one you've been raiding alongside of for the least four years. Every role has its difficulty, being aware and considerate of this is key. You are not an island, dear fellow tank, you need those people in your wake. And not being considerate of your group and its members is only going to make your run less smooth. Set up your Grid or whatever raid frames you use to show the amount of mana for every player. That way you can tell at a glance whether your healer is ready for you to pull another pack. Make sure that your healer is aware of when your cooldowns are up, be it through a spell announcer or some other way. Though we have our healers' Grids set up to show small icons for tank cooldowns, not every healer comes that prepared.

Not all of this is necessary for a run-of-the-mill Hour of Twilight Heroic, we're not saying you should have a long discussion with your healer before pulling the first pack but a little consideration goes a long way. The healer is there to help you, yes. But they are not your servant and not some mindless health machine. They're a person too and their job is by no means easier or less important than yours. After all, a stellar healer can indefinitely carry a DPS acting as tank but a tank cannot go forever without a healer. You are, as the cliché goes, only as strong as the team behind you. Remember that next time you're flat on your face because you didn't press Ardent Defender and you're about to shout at the healer. You don't help them, they don't help you. Keep it fair, my plate lovelies.

Next week we hope to give you an in-depth review of 5.0 changes but Bear and Dead Chick are currently relocating and there has been very little time to discover the many, many differences.

A Last Look at Cataclysm

2012-08-26T00:30:00.000+02:00

As Deathwing is tumbling down the totem pole, we here at Feral Blood are in a sort of nostalgic mood. We find ourselves, as we do near the end of every expansion, looking back over days passed, territory explored and bosses killed. Perhaps it is the foul stench of our original backpacks or the fact that there simply isn't much else to do but ponder during the homestretch to Pandaland. We are in agreement that Cataclysm is easily our least favourite expansion thusfar and it took us quite some thinking to come up with positive sides of our apocalyptic experience in Deathwing's shadow. So let's start by getting our Negative Nancy on, shall we? Great!

As stated by the incomparable Wowcrendor, Cataclysm didn't feel particularly unified, there was no new continent to conquer or explore. Players simply ported from zone to zone with little or no cohesion between them. There was no larger storyline linking them all together or driving you onwards, no corruption to eradicate or villain to follow to the edge of the earth. It was all very "Have some zones, do some stuff, enjoy!". In comparison, Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade offered a whole new continent, unified storylines and clear villains to defeat. While you could argue that Deathwing was this expansion's villain to slaughter, the links between him and the other raid tiers are tenuous at best. Not to even mention how little he had to do with the zones offered. Even the quintessential Deathwing zone, Deepholm, was forgettable and while questing there, we certainly did not feel connected to the lore behind the expansion.

While leveling during Wrath, at every turn the Lich King would foil your attempts or show up to meddle in your affairs to such an extent that by the time your chosen class dinged 80 you were out for his frosty blood. Deathwing, however, was just that big dragon who occasionally set you on fire while farming. Obnoxious, yes. But otherwise thoroughly unimpressive. And in the end, having defeated Deathwing, we did not feel the way we felt when the Lich King or Kil'jaeden fell at our overly armored feet. We felt quite blatantly overshadowed by the dragon aspects and Thrall, and as such could not help but feel his death was not truly at our hands. Our raid did not let out a collective sigh of relief as we dug the shinies from his massive scale. Unless, of course, you count the sighs of "Great, we have heroic on farm now".

Which brings us to the raid tiers preceding Dragon Soul. Blizzard, we love you but we're growing ever more weary of reused models and bosses. For once, it would be nice if when we killed something, it would stay dead. The most blatant example being Ragnaros. Yes, we get it, he's in cahoots with Deathwing and you changed some mechanics, tuned him up and gave him a new Majordomo but at the end of the day, we have seen him before. Let us rephrase that, we have seen quite enough of him to last us, trust us on this. And then there's the seemingly endless list of reused models. Oh hai, Warlord Zo'nozz, how's your long lost brother General Vezaxx doing? Every dragon is based on virtually the same model and every other boss we've seen before in some skin or another. You cannot tell us that it is that incredibly difficult to come up with a new model or two, at the very least for raid bosses. We don't mind seeing a lot of visual repeats while leveling but is it really necessary to recycle for endgame material? Please feed the art department, they're obviously running on fumes.

And not only models and bosses were recycled this time on the merry-go-round, low level instances were tuned up and used as current heroics. We would very much like to have a word with whomever came up with the idea. Though Shadowfang Keep was very much beloved by the Dead Chick in particular and the Heroic version was very much looked forward to, it has become a major point of frustration. This, dear Blizzard, was just plain and simple laziness. There was no lore behind it, no logic, no work. You took lower level instances, tuned them up and voila! We cannot imagine that took a particularly large amount of time and/or effort. And then you went right ahead and did the same thing with Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. Former raids many remembered fondly tuned up and turned out with improved loot, also removing the actual raids many still frequented for much sought after mounts.

And then there are the mechanics that were actually new. We hate to ride you, Blizzard, but it would be nice if you did some drug testing before throwing things on live servers. Heroic Rhyolith anyone? Surely someone was on crack that day. We find it very difficult to recall a boss that caused an equal amount of frustration. But hey, if that was the goal, job well done. Seriously though, between only certain players having the bar that helped with direction and him never behaving quite the same way between attempts, it just felt like incredibly bad engineering and, to be perfectly honest, like something that wasn't completed as intended but was released nonetheless. Another F for effort.

We feel strongly that a lack of effort was the general theme for Cataclysm as a whole. Sure, we like that the landscape has been altered - though the level of alteration was greatly exaggerated prior to Cataclysm being released -, we like that leveling is a slightly different experience now and we certainly appreciate that we no longer have to travel far and wide to pick up dungeon quests. But in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't redeem the lack of effort we feel went into Cataclysm.

We here at Feral Blood are big fans of the original lore, the driving force if you will, behind World of Warcraft. The Old Gods, the Titans, the origin story if we can call it that. And it both concerns and saddens us that this is not what we're being shown. Sure, you could say "Ah but Deathwing was corrupted by an Old God, so it all ties in" and that might all very well be true but we're wondering why these forces of destruction and discontent always seem to be an afterthought. Who is The Lich King compared to Yogg-Saron? Who is Deathwing compared to C'thun? What happened to The Emerald Dream? Why are we being handed these lackeys who dare not stand in the shadow of true evil? We understand that they're meant to be imprisoned and as such cannot truly manifest but we're getting a wee bit tired of fighting off an endless stream of mincing minions and not being able to strike at the heart of the beast whispering in their ears.

In conclusion, an F for effort, a C- for design, both raid and general, and when it comes to lore... We feel a facepalm is called for. We sincerely hope Pandas will bring a reprieve from the Cataclysmic disappointment. Of course, this is only our opinion, should you feel a strong urge to fight Cataclysm's corner, feel free to do so in the comments.

Bear Rawr: Why one size does not fit all

2012-08-18T22:09:00.000+02:00

To start, I am writing this as a purely PvE player. I don’t look down on or ridicule people that love PvP, it’s just not something I enjoy. I’m all for people doing what they enjoy in the game, like I do with raiding. I would also like to state before I begin that I'm not fighting the PvE corner, I would like to see a change that benefits both sides of the game.

I recently saw a blue post regarding spells working differently in PvE and PvP while browsing the World of Warcraft forums, and I have some thoughts on the issue. For reference the blue post is below, as well as the question - in all its poorly spelled glory - that was initially asked in the thread:

‘Is there a reason damage spells can't effect players diffrently? I will just use a random example here. Lets say spriest are doing to much pve dps ,but are sucking in pvp. Why can't blizz make mindflay do 10% to players to help fix the problem? Does somthing in the data prevent this the same way warlocks can't have green fire ,but can have red banish? Like only some spells can efect players diffrently (stuns and debuffs). If blizz found a way to make spells work diffrently on players it would make things SO MUCH BETTER.

I am sure blizz knows this ,but is there a legimit reason why they can't?’

"We do this already. Look at abilities such as Colossus Smash and even the concept of PvP CC durations, which has been in the game for a long time.It's not our option of first resort because it's not intuitive for players and it means anytime we want to make balance adjustments, we must change two sets of numbers"

Here is a link to the whole thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6201231500?page=1
The blue post is on page 2.

The point I want to make, is that there is a case for almost every spell working differently in PvE and PvP, just to make players' lives easier, and Blizzard's life easier in terms of balancing. I’m going to reference my experiences on my Restoration/Enhancement Shaman throughout the Cataclysm expansion.

The current system of diminishing returns the game uses to try to stop abilities being overpowered in PvP does not work as well as it could, and should be done better. Say a Mage is Polymorphing you, or a Shaman is Hexing you, it lasts for a shorter amount of time each cast on the same target. This is easily countered by just using another spell on them, thus resetting all the diminishing returns. This does not work, I have no PvP experience, but just by looking at it, I feel it could be done better. If the spells worked differently, the whole diminishing returns scenario wouldn’t even be needed, as it would be a new spell specifically designed for PvP.

The way it is now, Blizzard has to make a best fit balance between PvP and PvE in regard to how spells work. Shaman’s have an interrupt ability called Wind Shear. This, when Cataclysm came out, was an interrupt with a six second cooldown, so no matter what spec your shaman was, you could be the main interrupter on a fight like Halfus Wyrmbreaker for example. While this was good in PvE, PvP players were complaining that the ability was overpowered. I can see this, I can imagine in an arena environment (I have no personal experience of these but the Dead Chick does) having a healer on the other team that can interrupt your mage every 6 seconds could be frustrating. So Blizzard changed Wind Shear to have a 15 second cooldown. PvP players were happy with this, and like I say, I can imagine the difference this made. However, look at it from a PvE player's point of view. If your job in your 10 man raid was to interrupt Halfus Wyrmbreaker, you can no longer do this, you have been locked out of a job to balance PvP, to the detriment of PvE. The raid then has to rethink how the group is arranged in the fight. You're probably thinking this is a small change, and it is, it is however unnecessary.

I'll give you one more example. The Restoration Shaman spell Water Shield, which I'll explain just in case you don’t know how it works, so you have some context as to how it effects PvE. The Water shield spell, puts a shield on you with 3 charges, when you get hit with anything, one stack is removed and you get mana back. It has an internal cooldown, as in it could only remove a stack and give you mana once every X amount of seconds.

What Blizzard did with this spell is change it so they reduced the internal cooldown on the spell, so it procced twice as often, but only returned half the amount of mana. This was to make it harder in a PvP environment for a Restoration Shaman to keep it up 100% of the time because they could never go out of mana with the way it worked previously. Again, for PvP a good change, in PvE though it’s an inconvenience. When there is AoE damage going around, or anything, the stacks now get lost so quickly that you have to refresh way too often. When you get to a frantic healing part of a boss fight, your shield runs out but you can’t refresh it because it uses a global cooldown you can’t afford to use. You might argue this would have happened before, and that’s true. However, now it happens twice as frequently and there have been several fights where reapplying the shield would be a massive risk at best thus reducing the amount one could actually regenerate from it. Given that this change happened at a time when Shamans were already struggling in the mana department and the output department, it became quite the point of frustration. Point of fact, the Dead Chick still froths at the mouth at the very mention of this topic. As a former Restoration Shaman, she will not soon forgive Blizzard for the lack of love they've been shown throughout most of Cataclysm.

These are just some of the consequences of the philosophy of one size fits all with spell design. I’m sure there is something similar for the class you play as I'm just as sure that conversely changes for the benefit of PvE have affected avid PvP enthusiasts. My emphasis is purely on PvE as I simply do not partake in any kind of PvP but this does not diminish the fact that both sides suffer from this blanket approach. What I would propose is that spells where it’s necessary, like the two examples above that you just copy the spell in the database, and make the second one behave the new balanced for PvP way in battlegrounds and arenas. This way when something needed balancing in PvP or PvE, you just copy it and add the new effect for the zone. Simple. Of course the main issue is world PvP with this, but you could just have the new behaviour start as soon as the game detects you attacked, or were attacked by another player.

You could argue against this by saying that if a PvE player wants to get into PvP then everything will be different and there will be a learning curve. That’s a good thing! It also works the other way round, a learning curve will help the player be better at the other part of the game if it’s a bit different and you have to change your playstyle for it.

I feel this would make for simpler balance for the future of the game, and help Blizzard further develop PvE and PvP. Also the extra bit of skill that you would see in your random 5 mans, or your battlegrounds would be appreciated by every player.

What are your thoughts?

Dead Chick Farming: The Pandas are coming!

2012-08-11T20:14:00.001+02:00

As has been mentioned in previous posts; this dead chick likes to farm. There is some strange preference for mining and a great disdain for herbing that I blame solely on being a herbalist on a druid once upon a time and consequently being spoiled rotten so as to make herbing on anything else an absolute nightmare. But mining.... I breathe a contented sigh at the very thought of mining. I cannot count the hours or the XP bars I have filled with mining. I do believe the nice men in the white coats will be here shortly so I will get to the point.

A very big and beloved part of a new expansion for me is leveling professions and, consequently, making money. That's right, folks, momma likes to hear the register ring. This does, of course, mean that whenever the Blizzard pantheon announces from atop its throne that a new land of mysteries is coming along, I spend a lot of time preparing. As one of my goals for Pandas, aside from the usual race to max level and a good ol' howdi-do to the first raid boss of the expansion, is to become richer than our guild bank, this time around I have prepared to an even more insane level than ever before. Why am I telling you this? Well, if anyone is interested in ways to give themselves a financial or professional edge come Pandaland, you might find some ideas here at Feral Blood; Dead Chick Farming edition.

At the beginning of Cataclysm, it took me a good long while to level my main character's professions thus causing me to miss out on Realm First: Enchanting by about ten minutes. As I am an avid farmer and thoroughly enjoy leveling professions; it is to me the most exciting part of making a new character, I was understandably just a tad peeved. Okay, I wanted to rip people's faces off and feed them to rabid dogs. Either way, I decided this would not be the case for Pandas. Or, at the very least, I would do my darndest to avoid a repeat of that particular situation. Which brought me to my first mission.

1. Professional edge

Every profession, with the exclusion of Engineering as I consider it largely useless, is well-represented amongst my characters and as previous expansions have shown, buying crafting mats off of the auction house as we are just setting foot on a new or improved continent is reserved for those richer than god. I prefer my money to remain neatly stockpiled so I may sleep atop it like a giant dragon. It is my precious hoard and I simply refuse to part with it if there is any other way. So what could I do to speed my profession leveling along? I looked at each of my crafting professions and decided to gather the materials required to make items that are currently at least yellow or better.

Whether it's PvP necklaces for Jewelcrafting, Peerless Stats for Enchanting or whatever else, every profession has at least a handful of recipes that are destined to give you a few quick points using mats that simply aren't worth much of anything near the end of an expansion. If you're anything like me, you probably saved them just in case you needed another enchant or gem or belt buckle. I spent a few hours gathering the materials I needed to give myself a bare minimum of ten points for each crafting profession. I sold the remaining materials when our virtual economy was still good and those gathered now are saved to sell to those poor souls who did not prepare for what is coming. And as I inevitably get too attached to my materials, I'm afraid they won't come cheap. Insert cackle here. Oh and remember, a little Potion of Treasure Finding can speed your farming efforts along.

Here we see the Cataclysm materials saved up for future consumption in my especially created guild bank.

My first mission accomplished, I pondered the pre-Cataclysm days and how my preparation then was limited to filling my main character's quest log with 25 daily quests to be handed in as soon as the world had changed forever. Oh how young and naive I was. How, I wondered, could I have let the best time to make the shiny gold slip me by? Not this time! I consulted many a blog and forum for money-making ideas but quickly came to the conclusion that a lot of it is conjecture and guesswork. What did ring true, however, was the concept of low level necessities. As a lot of people make new characters at the beginning of any expansion, catering to the needs of Shockadin the level 1 Shaman and all of his friends, can pay off greatly. Which brought me to my second mission.

2. Financial edge

You make a new character and the first thing you find yourself in need of is.... You got it, a set of bags to store all your future goodies in. Netherweave bags still take most players' fancy as they are generally cheaper than the Frostweave or Embersilk equivalent. As such I decided to devote an entire guild bank tab to stacks of Bolts of Netherweave as such

Netherweave cloth is generally cheap regardless of the server and even if the bags themselves do not sell for more than 20 gold apiece, there is a massive profit to be made from buying the materials cheap and crafting them into something that can be sold for about 200% of what you paid if not more. And everyone knows those things'll be selling like hotcakes at the jump-off. For the player who wants a bit more bang for their buck, there is a tab for you too!

Crafted and ready to go, these will cater to the smaller market of players wanting to maximize their new or old character's inventory.

What else could a new character need? Well, a new character needs professions and professions use materials, I reasoned, so why not gather a bunch of low level materials that will no doubt be in demand come Pandas? The easiest.... Okay, not easiest, the least boring way to do this is to simply make a new character yourself, set them up with two gathering professions (guild bank optional but useful) and gather while leveling. I selected a Tauren Paladin, acquired Herbalism and the much beloved Mining - though any other gathering profession will do - and set to work. The fruits of my labor can be seen here

As a tiny note, if you choose to make a new character and do the occasional dungeon, make sure to attune said character to the Darkmoon Faire. Few low level characters are attuned to receive the quest items and if you don't need them yourself, they sell for quite a pretty penny on the auction house. It's a good way to give your new toon some walking-around money and also minimize the investment getting your own guild bank can be.

While leveling you will inevitably end up with random materials as well. Random materials such as cloth which, as it is needed by both tailors and those wanting to level First Aid, can be quite valuable. Gems, pearls, enchanting and cooking mats can all be quite valuable at the start of a new expansion. But I'll be honest about my last tab, a lot of the items collected there and in my new paladin's personal bank, are a bit of a wildcard. They'll no doubt be worth something, how much... I'll let you know when the Pandas take over.

The initial idea was to eventually change one of those professions to Skinning as to also provide myself with a stash of leather but as you can see my guild bank is reaching maximum capacity and so I have had to reign in my lust for the shiny, yellow stuff.

And that is how the dead chick prepares for a new expansion. While it is also a great time to finish up long-neglected reputations, achievements or quest lines, the ore - gold or otherwise - is where my heart truly lies and as such, this is how I spend the many hours that would otherwise be quite dull indeed in the absence of new content. What about you? How do you prepare for what is to come on September 25th?

Anonymity or Douchebaggery?

2012-08-04T00:14:00.000+02:00

We here at Feral Blood have just about run out of things to do in our beloved World of Warcraft in the run-up to Mists of Pandaria. As such we have chosen to level a set of long-neglected alts and the dead chick likes to farm (Don't ask). As both of us have leveled many a character and have seen virtually every quest line from here to Shattrath, we generally prefer to level by dungeon and keep the questing to a minimum. Not everyone's choice, we're sure but it takes our preference. Or it did until recently. We noticed something a little bit funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny tragic. Namely that the behavior of people in randoms has deteriorated to a depth we had not fathomed possible.

While we realize that when leveling, it is not only possible but likely one will come across new players frequently, we don't worry too much about low DPS or a struggling healer. We make it our business to learn the ins and outs of the characters we play - though we are by no means experts when it comes to alts - and so can generally work around someone who hasn't quite mastered their class yet or is struggling with specific mechanics. Not an issue, we understand, we were new once too. If asked and able, we'll even happily provide some pointers and generally we try very hard to remain civil although we will admit we do not always succeed.

What we cannot comprehend, however, is the omnipresence of an ever more terrible attitude of certain players. We, and I'm sure most people who have recently leveled a character, have quite literally seen it all. Melee hunters with taunting pets (always a classic), ditto for the warlocks, healers who struggle and upon seeing your Word of Glory (or any other heal) tick up, refuse to heal you because "That's my job!", Death Knights who refuse to turn off Blood Presence when DPS, healers and range DPS that pull large packs miles ahead of the tank and then get incredibly foul when said tank is unable to save them in time, hybrid classes signing as tank or healer when they are blatantly DPS, ... The list goes on. Now, mistakes can be made and we make a point of it to always request a change nicely. However, our "Kindly turn off Blood Presence, it's a bit of a pain for me and the healer" is more often than not answered with foul language, an outright refusal and, most incredibly, being kicked from the group.

Our characters are now in the 70s level range and our ignore list is getting no shorter. We asked ourselves what could be the cause of this. We recall times when a tank or healer of even moderate skill was looked at with respect and reverence and certainly not treated like something stuck under one's shoe. We considered our own behavior, are we expecting too much? Being unnecessarily demanding? As other players in our groups often point out exactly the same issues and friends in the online community list it as the main reason they will not tank and will only hesitantly heal lower level instances, we kind of doubt this train of thought.

So what is it? What makes people think that they can not only play poorly but upon being asked quite nicely not to do a certain thing, reply with foul language and, if we may say so, dated jabs at our mothers? Oftentimes even the insistence that they "have a life" and for us to care about proper procedure we must not have one is listed as a reason why they will not stop pulling large packs of groups miles ahead of anyone remotely capable of punching bag'ing it.

The bear posits that it is mostly the cloak of anonymity that allows them to be, if we may take the liberty of saying so, monumental asshats. There is no punishment for bad behavior. Sign up for a random dungeon, get group, act however you like, be handed loot, rinse, repeat. Once upon a time, in a land far far away where LFD did not exist, you had to build your own group on your own realm to complete an instance. And if you acted like a monumental asshat, you would quickly garner a reputation on said realm that was difficult to shake. Consequently your invites to dungeon groups would shrink considerably. These days it is extremely likely you will never see the foursome you just completed Azjol'Nerub with again. As such there are no repercussions for pissing said foursome off royally.

However, there is a slight problem with this assumption. We have that very same cloak of anonymity hanging by the door, we very easily could sling it over ourselves and be monumental asshats in return. Yet we do not. Nor do the genuinely nice and/or skilled players that we've met on our leveling journey. Because those players are out there; DPS that come to a healer's aid when the tank is oblivious to the loose mob beating the living hell out of him/her, healers that thank you for self-healing and explain that they are still learning, DKs that Death Grip a caster in only when asked or necessary. But these seem to be ever fewer encounters. On occasion, we ourselves forget to turn off Crusader Aura or to adjust our totems to the group and when told we do not react in what can only be called an extremely aggressive fashion. We say "Thank you, must have missed that", make the change and carry on.

So we found ourselves wondering; if we all have that very same cloak and the ability to use it, what causes one player to do so and another to leave their diva at the door? (Yes, we like that phrase) The bear points out that before Wrath, one had to be a good player simply to get through normal instances or one would never even set foot in a heroic one. Now the game does not demand any such thing. While at the start of Cataclysm some skill or, at the very least, the ability to Crowd Control was required, that is far from the truth now. In short, the game does not demand you play well. One could posit that back then there were no resources like ElitistJerks to help you on your path to enlightenment when it comes to your chosen class, that there was no choice but to learn by doing. And while that is true, that argument slices both ways. There is such a wealth of information out there to help you learn, it is almost inexcusable that one should play poorly. However, as mentioned, we understand everyone is new at some point and everyone learns in different ways.

So how does this link back to the aforementioned terrible attitude seen so frequently in lower level dungeons? Our only possible conclusion - though do comment if you disagree, we always like a good walk in another person's shoes - is that the simplicity of instances these days means that certain players think it does not matter what they do. Whether they play well or not, the instance will be completed. Whether they act like an asshat or a saint, the worst that could happen is a kick and they can simply re-queue and torment another group. Sadly, even that is generally a far cry as, as we all know, someone who acts like an asshat generally has his friend Douchebag the hunter with him who will safeguard his presence in the group should a kick be initiated. LFD has basically become a forum where if you want to be an asshat, you can with no consequences that last longer than the 30 minute punishment instituted by Blizzard. When we last checked in - as avid raiders, we don't frequently wade in the hopeless depths that are LFR - Looking For Raid has suffered the same fate.

So what is the solution? As we're sure Feral Blood isn't the first blog to address this sorry state of affairs, we can assume a plea for civility will not wrought any change. Our vote, instead, goes to a sort of ranking system. If a player is not only inept but actively and purposefully ruining the run for the entire group, his/her ranking will reflect this and he/she will be less likely to be granted a group. We see it as a sort of scoreboard, every player, upon completion of an instance, has the ability to rank the other players. Think of it as a Facebook Like or Dislike. Upon selecting the LFD section, one could choose to be grouped with players who have at least 50% positive rating or higher. Sadly, this kind of system would be difficult to implement and would, of course, have some margin of error. It could also cause players to have to wait longer for their queue to pop as it would split up the player base. However, we here at Feral Blood wouldn't mind waiting just a tiny bit longer for an instance in which there is no uncalled for asshattery. What about you?

Announcement

2012-08-03T14:35:00.002+02:00

Bear and Dead Chick would like to announce their engagement! And might I add a "Woot!".

Bear Rawr: Y U NO GIEF ATTUNEMENTS?!

2012-07-28T17:23:00.000+02:00

Now, you may agree or disagree with me as much as you like, or think I have a very antediluvian view of the game, but I’m going to talk about my opinion on how the difficulty of World of Warcraft has evolved, and the consequences this has for the future of the game.

For years, players were complaining that content was too hard. This was all through vanilla, and the Burning Crusade. Yes, content was hard, even hard to get into in these phases of the game, but this was a good thing. This is why I have this opinion.

For me, raiding is all about the experience of killing that boss you have been working on, that adrenaline rush as it’s about to die, and the feeling you get when it does. In Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, the raids had attunement quests, as I'm sure all of us old timers remember vividly. These were very long, and hard to complete. It meant, that when a new tier of content came out, you could not enter it straight away and smash your way to victory, as with the Dragon soul raid, and the raid finder tool that was released with it.

Tools like this diminish the experience of raiding, and this is only going to get worse from now on with the addition of raid finder and the fact that when Mists of Pandaria comes out, people will run through raid finder the day after release, get the gist of the bosses, then move on to normal and heroic raiding. You may be thinking ‘This sounds fine, why is this guy rambling on?’. I’ll tell you.

Imagine, raid finder didn’t exist, and neither did ‘normal’, or ‘heroic’ modes, and it was like the raids were set up in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, one difficulty. You see the announcement of a new tier of raiding, there is a cool trailer, you look forward to playing, and conquering the challenges inside the instance. However, when it is released, before you can even think of entering, you have to do an attunement quest line. Think of the attunement quest lines there were before you could enter Onyxia, or the quest line to get attuned to Naxxramas, that is if you're old and crotchety enough to remember. They were long, and hard, but they were good. They gave you a feel for the lore of the raid, and why you are going in there to fight and kill the demons inside.

When you completed these quest chains, it gave you a feeling of accomplishment, like you had achieved something. ‘I can now enter Onyxia’s lair!’, all the while you were doing these quests, your excitement of killing the bosses inside had been growing. Now your raid could enter, and you could start working on and killing the bosses. Now think about it, you put all this work into getting inside the raid, you had to be able to play your character well to even get attuned, and with the difficulty of the fights, you need that knowledge, skill, and practice, to even kill the boss. Imagine the feeling killing it gives you after all that work, compared to now, when you get your first kill. Bear in mind, now you run through on Looking for Raid, then you clear normal in week one, you don’t get that feeling until you kill your first heroic boss in week two, but by this time you have killed the boss twice. It doesn’t compare. Not in the slightest. This is the reason I raid, the feeling I raid for, and over the years it has been slowly eroded, getting smaller and smaller each expansion, and as new features are added. The only way to get that feeling again, as it was in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, is to kill a boss as the world first. I however am not in a world first guild, this is not the same feeling anyway, nor do I have the time to put into it that they do. These guilds raid 7 days a week pushing very long raids to get world firsts, this would not be fun for me. I want to play three or four times a night for around 4 hours, but still get this feeling and progressing at a fast pace. The way the game is going, this will never happen again. With attunement quest lines back, this would be restored.

The changes have happened slowly, with features that as a community, ‘we’ were asking for. The reasoning behind people asking was that only 1% of people got to see the content, and that they were paying the same amount for the game, the same amount of money to develop this content, and they didn't get to see it. I understand this, but what you don’t get is that you're depriving yourself of a great experience, by asking Blizzard to take out the attunements, and getting them to give you easy ways to gear up.

It’s now at a point that end game heroic raiders are a dying breed. with the game being so easy to gear up, and experience the content, new raiders, in general aren’t motivated to get into and kill heroic modes, and are happy to say they completed the game when they clear Looking For Raid, or normal mode. This is not the experience raiding was supposed to be. This is not the players' fault, this is the attitude they have because they are not challenged. This attitude of wanting to kill the hardest content, comes from the content being inaccessible. This is a good thing, but because it was a challenge, people complained and blizzard removed such quest lines and attunements. The fact that in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade tiers of content were released before most people had even killed the last boss of the previous tier and would, in any case, have to wait a week or two to be able to enter the new content while getting attuned, added to the excitement for the new content. It kept people on their toes, at the highest skill level, and excitement for the content was kept high.

These effects are even clear in the subscriber numbers. The game subscriptions were climbing all the way through Vanilla, and The Burning Crusade. When Wrath came out, they increased a little, but nowhere near as much as they did in the previous expansions. When they tried to make it harder again in Cataclysm, subscribers fell dramatically, because 2 years of the game being casual and approachable, has ruined players' expectations of the game. They had to nerf things down to Wrath levels, to stabilize the player base, now the game can never go back to how it was as the subscriber numbers would not hold up. Heroic raiders are the 1% of players. In Vanilla and the Burning Crusade, when you saw someone kitted out in the latest raid gear, it encouraged you to get attuned and get into raiding and get them for yourself. Now everyone has a sense of entitlement about seeing the raid, just because they pay, they have to be able to see all the content. Tuning the game around the 1% will never work again.

Concerning Looking for Raid, the way I would like to see this employed in Mists of Pandaria, is that it is not released until someone has achieved a world first kill of the final boss on heroic mode for the current tier, this is the only way to preserve the feeling of raiding, if Looking for Raid has to stick around. Attunement quests could once again be implemented for normal and heroic modes and as with the current guild system, everyone and their mother is part of a guild, be it casual or raiding or even PvP, people could still easily complete the quests line and have a look at the content even if they do not wish or are not able to kill it.

To conclude, In Mists of Pandaria, I would like to see attunements implemented the way they were in The Burning Crusade. I however would not have a problem with the previous tier, once new content is out, no longer needing attunement. At that point, the players that aren't in the 1% can see it. If it was the last tier of the expansion, let them have it without an attunement after 6 months, 3 months at the earliest.

I would like them to go back to the Burning Crusade model of the game. They won’t however, because now that would be bad for the game, because of the way the game has been run since Wrath. There would be a mass exodus, a sad turn of events in my opinion.

Bear out.

Disclaimer

2012-07-22T20:38:00.000+02:00

It has come to our attention that there is a piece of Twilight fanfiction by the same name as our dear blog and as such some of our readers are led here thinking that is what we're all about. Obviously this could not be less accurate nor were we aware of this when we made our blog. Here the name is strictly related to both Blood and Feral tanking specs. So once more with feeling, we are not associated with anything related to Twilight or the person who wrote the Feral Blood fanfiction piece. Let us just say Twilight is very much not in our wheelhouse.

Know Thy Fellow Tank

2012-07-22T19:12:00.002+02:00

Believe me when I say it pays to know your fellow meat shield`s abilities and his or her habits and know them well, be it a challenging environment or simply your guild`s weekly foray into the depths of Dragon Soul. And not only because it may prevent you or your tankerrific other half to go splat! As heavy as it may sound, a good tanking team, like a good healing team, is all about symbiosis. What do you have? What do you lack? And how can you compensate for the latter?

I know, I know, it sounds like an obvious sort of thing to know the abilities of your fellow punching bag. To some it might even seem like an irrelevant matter; do the job, get the loot, every dead chick for herself. And in the heavily nerfed conditions we currently find ourselves in, it doesn`t often make a difference whether we gather our loot alongside a shield-toting paladin or warrior, or a fur-clad, perpetually ravenous bear, a silvery thread of drool dangling precariously from his left fa-.... But I digress.

I`m not just talking about knowing the other tank`s cooldowns and abilities here; it should be obvious enough that a Death Knight doth not equal a Paladin when it comes to this particular field of engagement. It doesn`t exactly take a genius to figure out that perhaps a bear isn`t the best choice to soak bursts of magic damage or that a Death Knight at low health and out of range of the healers can remedy the situation herself whereas a warrior might not be so lucky. What I`m carrying on about here is on perhaps a more basic level. At what point does your fellow tank use his or her cooldowns? When faced with two packs of mobs, are they likely to take the left or right pack first? Is their class or playstyle more suited to taking the adds in a particular fight or is he or she more boss material? This goes to the very heart of both the strengths and weaknesses of the class in question as those of the player.

For instance, I myself am not a huge fan of kiting. I'm not even a mouse-sized fan of kiting. And though I will certainly do it if my Death Knight happens to be the most suited class to handle the abilities of the mob(s) to be kited, I recognize that my other half is far superior at such things when it comes down to simple playstyle. As such I have no problem taking a backseat when kiting is involved. When you get to know your fellow tank, you not only get to know various aspects of their class and playstyle but you also get to see yourself through their eyes which is often extremely beneficial, if not always easy information to handle. Death Knights, for example, as I'm sure all of you who play Blood know, are prone to gather a ton of threat and gather it quickly thus often inadvertently taking a mob or boss off of their fellow tank. Whilst not always problematic, it can often irritate your brother in arms. And it most certainly will irritate him/her should they be unfamiliar with the class mechanics. Communication is, as the cliché goes, the cornerstone of every relationship.

It sounds simple and straightforward but we all know a bad tanking team can wipe a raid forever by something as simple as not opening their mouths when it`s time to swap the dragon around. While it`s easy to think "Fuck it, I got this" and not care very much about the dead Paladin on the floor, if there`s 60% left on the boss and you`re all out of resses... You`re going to have a bad time of it. Figuring out amongst yourselves when the best time is to pop a cooldown, what the risks and benefits are of both your own class and playstyle as that of your armored pal, what kind of damage both you and your opposite will take - consistent, inconsistent, this all depends on the tank as much as the encounter, of course - habits, quirks and preferences will all help to make your run go more smoothly.

Now, I'm sure there are people thinking "Please, any player worth their salt knows how a Death Knight/Druid/Paladin/Warrior works" and that's largely true. But my point here is that it isn't always about the class, a lot of the time it's about the player. As we all know, there is much dissension when it comes to "How to play/gem/reforge class X best". Not everyone agrees and it varies from encounter to encounter, from player to player. While there are guidelines and 'best laid plans' if you will, everyone goes a slightly different way with slightly different or even massively different results. Not only will communication help you anticipate these results, it will also allow you to work out kinks, issues or misunderstandings and overall create a much more friendly environment.

As a final note, this does not mean you should feel free to criticize and chastize your partner. Whenever faced with a new plate pal, I urge you to compromise. Approach him/her in a friendly manner, ask questions when you don't understand why they play the way they do or why something didn't work out but do not always assume a problem is their fault. If you have criticism, keep it constructive and offer suggestions as to how to overcome a certain obstacle. In short, get chatty and keep it friendly. You have a common goal and the point is to get there together, so leave the diva at home and get your symbiosis going.

Everybody games!

2012-07-13T03:56:00.000+02:00

We here at Feral Blood take a fair amount of shit for being gamers. Perhaps we should elaborate on who "we" is exactly. We are a couple that met on World of Warcraft. Don`t make that face; we`re not exactly being terribly original here. We both play tanks; he a fuzzy bear, she a Death Knight, we raid in a semi-hardcore guild and our aim is to defeat the heroic encounters just as fast as our overly armored butts can manage. Avid no-lifers, we enjoy a thorough range of games and most of our free time is spent in imaginary, sometimes slightly too pixelated worlds. And this is where the aforementioned shit comes in.

Throughout most of our lives we have been viewed derisively as people who blatantly have no lives because what ho! We enjoy time spent in front of a or, rather, several monitors rather than spending our time at the local pub our some sort of sporting event. Now we are not here to make snide remarks at those who choose to fill their spare time with these activities. Yet that same courtesy is not bestowed upon us supposedly antisocial and marginalized gamers. The common belief that gaming is for those below the legal drinking age or those who reside in their maternal unit`s basement is apparently still upheld high and low. Generally connected with gaming is a lack of social skills, a lack of personal responsibility and forward thinking and just an all-round sense of childishness.

Now while we could sit here, clang our armor and growl in the general direction of those casting said old, tired stones, we would like to throw back a big, fluffy pillow of truth. Everybody games. You heard us! Everybody! From the grandmother who enjoys a good game of Tetris with a glass of wine on a quiet evening to the teenager who feverishly maintains their Farmville cattle. I dare you to find a smartphone user who does not have a single game on their device. We could easily look up quite how many times something like Angry Birds has been downloaded since its inception but we feel our point is strong enough without statistics. If you own a console, guess what? You`re right there in that supposedly marginalized bracket of people that we are. Going by the strong sales of just this generation of consoles every day, the question occurs to us; just how marginalized do you think we are? Not to tread on anyone`s toes but the slogan We Are Legion, We Are Many (made recognizable by a group we have no affiliation with) comes to mind. And you know what, happy pub goer? You are one of us. So perhaps a less derogatory comment would be appropriate when you happen to notice an Authenticator on our keys or our Noobs Play Alliance t-shirt offends you.

Now you might say "Ah but Angry Birds is hardly comparable to an MMO, is it?" First of all, let us congratulate you on your gaming terminology! Second of all, there is truth in this. Not as much is required to be a dab hand at Angry Birds as there is to playing something like World of Warcraft. It does not take anywhere near as much skill, knowledge, coordination or communication to determine that the white bird will never gather enough velocity to break down wooden frames but can be used as a sort of makeshift grenade launcher as it does to successfully take ten people into a raid and bring down heroic modes. Because those are precisely the things World of Warcraft teaches you if you play it at any real level. You need to know what you have, how to use it in a given situation and how to communicate this information to the rest of your raid team. And if you happen to lead your team, you need to be able to bring out the best in 9 or 24 other players and come up with a strategy to overcome the encounters. Whereas Tetris or Angry Birds is a solitary endeavor, World of Warcraft is decidedly multi-player and in a heroic raid environment, you had better know your team well. So there goes the old antisocial myth flying out the window with reckless abandon.

To summarize, everyone games, just not at the same level. And if there is one thing an avid player of an MMORPG is not; it`s lacking in social skills or otherwise incapable. Here endeth the introductory rant.