The Reasons for Hating Oculus

That poor, lonely instance Oculus. Its looking for group channel is always dusty and vacant, its loot is scarcely touched. The bosses chill out with impunity, which is rather a difficult task to master (but they've had the time). The drakes have plenty of time to make more whelps. The empty holes in Glory of the Hero mock those looking for a group, even as their friends respond to their requests for help with whispered obscenities and PTSD-like symptoms.

So what is it about Oculus that inspires such horror and loathing?

The first could be the requirements for Heroic achievements. You'll need to go no less than three times, and perhaps more depending upon the lifespan of your drakes and if you can get from the first boss's dying throes to the last boss's dramatic collapse in under 20 minutes. Not a single boss in the instance besides the last has any achievement attached to it. And there is simply no way to get all the achievements done in less than three runs with the inclusion of Experienced Drake Rider (and your drake must be alive at the end of the fight to receive credit).

Another issue would be that this instance, at least on the final boss, relies heavily upon coordination and competency. It also requires adaptation and understanding of your mount's abilities. You have to have five people working together with an understanding of how to function in varying levels of various drakes, and it takes a lot of trial and error. Last night I was in a five Amber Drake group (to get Ruby Void and Emerald Void in one go) and though we eventually got the boss down, it took some coordination, failed strategies, and consultation with those who had done it before (thanks Aegus and Iliana). We rode our drakes naked so we didn't rack up too much of a repair bill, and tweaked our strategy until we had it. But even with experienced raiders along, there were deaths and adjustments until we got used to the strategy and our drakes.

I suppose the main reason people dislike Oculus ("dislike" being used in its most extreme form here) is that, no matter how geared you are, how far you have progressed, or how you spec, it won't matter for the final boss fight. Your Drake will never have more health than your party can buff it (at the expense of buffing their own Drake), your moves will never do more damage than they do, you will never heal for more than you do, you will never shield from more than you do, at the first moment you step into Oculus to your last run. The Drakes are an equalizer, so that a healer can DPS, a tank can heal and the DPS can tank. Your spec can be terrible, and you can ride a Drake and win.


In some ways this is good. While the first three bosses need some decent DPS, they are manageable with people under 2k. While not all the achievements can be completed with low DPS, many of them can because on Drakes it just doesn't matter. All that matters is that you understand how to use the Drake in coordination with the other people (and therefore that they understand how to use their Drake as well).

However, people dislike Oculus because they have no control over improving their Drake. They do not get to choose what their Drake can do past color, and sometimes not even then (due to group makeup requirements or achievement purposes). This lack of control is frustrating and puts a lot of people off. They do not like having to "learn a new class" while riding a Drake, because, for all intents and purposes, that's what you are doing. It's impossible to cover for someone; if the only Emerald Drake dies, then you're SOL where healing is concerned. No one can off-heal. This rigidity can be irritating.

I personally enjoy Oculus. The first three bosses are just complicated enough to require environmental awareness and precision, while not completely blocking you from the rest of the instance. Also, since your own gear does not affect your Drake's performance at all, you are free to remove the gear and eliminate a lot of the penalty for wiping. It's unique and fun to learn different strategies and Drakes, in my opinion, and I look forward to going back.

A Weekend of Achievements

This weekend was a roller coaster of awesome and not-so-awesome, highs and lows. Luckily, it ended at a high point and only started at a low point.

The problems included being locked for heroic groups that bugged out (Skadi despawning at about 20% health for no reason) or replaced me with their "original healer" who was camping the instance anyway, or a very rude mage telling me I was a horrible healer because I didn't heal him for 30 seconds while dodging around the center to avoid Loken's AoE thing. His guildmates apologized for him, but never going to run anything with him again, that's for sure.

But, the awesome part...

Achievement Extravaganza!

This weekend I received:
On the Rocks, Split Personality, Chaos Theory, Share the Love, Abuse the Ooze, What the Eck?, Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, Heroic: The Oculus, Timely Death, Zombiefest, Shatter Resistant, and Lightning Struck. This led to Champion of the Frozen Wastes. I also ended up getting The Argent Crusade, The Argent Champion, Second that Emotion, 1000 Fish, and 500 Stone Keeper's Shards, and Sugarcake got Level 60, and Bellbell finished Veteran of Wrathgate.

Perhaps the one I'm most excited about is Heroic: Twilight Duo!


I hope you can understand why there's no continuation of the PTR Lifebloom today; it will be up soon, I promise!

Best part of the achievements was that, at the end of Abuse the Ooze, only me and the ret paladin who bubble taunted were alive. I got a whisper from one of the shadow priests along for the ride about how good a job I did healing. I was feeling miserable at that point because three people had died! How could that be a good job? But he assured me that with his other groups he couldn't even get close.

So I went from being trashed at the beginning of the weekend to being praised at the end.

Thanks, Araiti. You're a kickass Shadow Priest as well.

RP Friday Five: Parts of the Whole

My first time responding to the RP challenges routinely presented by the Anna part of Too Many Annas. And in the spirit of things, I'll respond as per Button.

What color are your character’s eyes?

Violet, actually, and rather a unique shade at that. Flecked with white, when it catches the light it almost looks like a luminescent lavender.

What is your character’s skin like? Does he or she have freckles, tattoos, or other noticeable markings?

One of the reasons Button wears his goggles so often is a hairline scar running down his right eye, trophy of the battle against Ner'zhul and his death knights on the steps of the Black Temple. He also has a tattoo across his shoulderblades in some archaic language that reads "Loyaulte Me Lie".

How does your character smile?

Button has a genuine smile, reserved for his friends, that is rarely seen. Most of the time his grin is a sadistic one, full of savage glee as he hacks at the kneecaps of this tauren or other.

How does your character carry him or herself when walking around? What is his or her posture like?

Button is as proud a Gnome as there ever was, though he has little time to actually associate with his brethren. He stands proud, with his weight evenly distributed on both legs, fingers flexing, always ready to attack or defend.

Describe your character’s hands.

Scarred and calloused, used to years of warfare, holding a weapon. Powerful fingers, for a Gnome.

And there you have it. That was actually sort of cathartic. I might have to do this more often.

- Button

Guest Post: Loot Differences Hurt the 10-Man Guild

This post was written by a long-time reader and commenter, Kayeri, who is active on many Druid blogs. She writes now about a concern that affects her personally, and many others.

This is something that has occurred to me from time to time in various forms and I’ve even seen it referred to on some of the many blogs I read, without ever addressing it directly. So Bell has generously allowed me to air my concerns and perhaps we’ll get back some ideas worth thinking over. What really catalyzed this post was a frustrated comment made the other night by our guild’s best tank, a protection paladin, before she logged for the night.

“Without 25’s I can’t improve my character and if I can’t improve my character, why play the game?” This concerned me deeply, because in the year I have known her, I have never once seen her express such intense frustration. If someone like this can be driven to that level of frustration, it’s time to get this out in the open and talk about it.

When Blizz first announced it was implementing the dual 10/25 man tracks for raiding, I was thrilled. I’d always felt a sense of incompletion in Burning Crusade as my guild wasn’t (and isn’t) large enough to do the 25-man content and complete the story arc of that expansion. That was not going to happen in Lich King… hurrah for Blizz! Then they told us 25-man loot would be better than 10-man. I shrugged it off at the time, because undoubtedly 25-man content would be more difficult than 10-man. I was still riding the high from being able to do the entire expansion storyline.

Well, the more difficult encounters at 25-man never really happened. The encounters, for the most part, are on par in difficulty. Yes, there can be slightly different mechanics or additional adds thrown in for the larger raid, but in overall difficulty per player, IE how hard each player works during each boss fight, is not significantly different in 10 and 25. With the exceptions of Patchwerk and possibly Kel’thuzad, I really am working no harder in a 25-man than in a 10-man.

So why the loot difference? Encounter difficulty is the crux for me. Better loot should be rewarded for more difficult encounters which means I should be working harder in 25-man encounters than 10-man to earn that loot. It is definitely more difficult to coordinate 25 people than 10. That’s a given. Herding 25 cats is obviously harder than herding 10. But is there any other reason? During the encounter, you’re doing pretty equivalent work whether its 10 or 25. Is that what Blizz intended with the dual raid track? I don’t know, honestly.

The effects on the 10-man raid guild are not good. People leave because they can’t get top flight gear. The last 4-6 weeks have seen the largest population drop we’ve ever experienced. People, including me, have started pugging more to get better gear. That means less time working together and the guild’s teamwork has suffered for it. Also, 10-man guilds are recommended as ‘gear-up-and-move-on” guilds, and that’s not what we want to be. Worst of all, it has been seen in general chat when assembling pug raids on our server, “Don’t bother psting me if you’re in that 10-man Naxx crap!” It’s not frequent, but it is happening.

So is there a way to balance things so the 10-man track can access the gear they need to be the best they can be without reversing course and hurting the 25? The one thing we all have in common is we want to be the best player/raider we can be. To do that, we all need the best gear we can get our hands on. 10-man raiding guilds are handicapped in that by size alone. And the plain fact is, I love my guild. I’ve cultivated genuine friendships there. I’ve hosted guildies in my home and visited other in theirs. It’s an atmosphere I feel comfortable in and that matches my needs. I don’t want to leave and I won’t. If there is a balance point out there, I’d love to find it, because I want to enjoy my guild AND have the best gear I can get my mitts on.

Light at the End

Restokin just recently wrote a post about healing in Ulduar, citing a Blue post by that infamous Ghostcrawler talking about healing styles of two druids on two boss fights in Ulduar. It's a very nice post, with some large concerns about Regrowth and its lack of use during raiding on the PTR, and I encourage you to read it. However, it inspired me to talk about something I have a few times before, and that is healing meters, judgments and perceptions.

With WWS reports, it has become almost an obsession for some people to delve into them, see who tops the meters, who has done the most dispels, who uses what spells in what ratio during what fights and omginformationoverload. And anyone who has taken a statistics course understands that too little of this information scrutiny and making correlations can become omgmisinformationoverload.

Don't understand? Here is what I mean.

People have different ideas of what it means for a boss kill to be successful. Some think that, as long as the boss goes down, it's a successful kill. Others look at a boss that was killed with three fourths of the raid dead due to standing in crap or bad tanking or ineffective heals and not think it as a true "success." There can be boss kills where everyone lives (or the majority, anyway), yet this healer worked twice as hard with less overheal to cover for this other healer and tank x blew cooldowns because tank y's threat rotation was flawwed or DPS A skyrocketed to the top of the charts by attacking inappropriate targets or ignoring instructions that would improve their chances to survive (but would keep them from beating on a target for thirty seconds onoes). Are those successes?

I have met Druids convinced that glyphed Healing Touch was the best glyph choice for an 80 raider because they always topped the charts. I've listened to the worn-out complaints of a healer pushed to their limit because they are covering their own assignment and half the assignments of others. I've found healers thinking they are doing a bad job because they are low on the charts, yet they are covering their assignments, doing all they can and always trying to get better.

No one uses the exact same rotation, spec, or gear set. Every situation brings something different. Some places HoTs shine, other places you need the big straight heals. There is so much experimentation going on in 3.1, presenting only a few choice cases can only skew the data. Learning new boss fights while simultaneously adjusting to changes in a spell, combined with differences in healing assignment, dispel demands, mobility, skill, glyph and spec choice, plus preference, the results are going to be varied, different and can be interpreted differently, and even understood or represented in a way someone wishes them to be.

I have done my best on this blog to focus on positives, on how to adjust to changes, and how to keep playing and having fun, because in the end, there are only two choices: keep playing your Resto Druid, or stop. I wish to keep playing my Resto Druid, no matter the changes, until she ceases being fun for me. If these changes go through (and it is looking more and more like they will), what will you decide? Keep in mind, if the Resto Druid is no longer fun for you after these changes, it's completely fine. It's a game to play, a game to have fun with, and if you're not having fun, then frankly you're doing it wrong.

I Can't Believe It Was THAT BAD

Vault is easy, right? Right. Nothing can change that. It is four pulls then a boss that requires minimal coordination and staying off steps and out of clouds. Simple, right? Right.

So, it starts with Vault 10. I'm leader. We have a tank, a healer, and DPS. We quickly fill the other spots until all we need is an OT. A person leaves after I invite a friend to OT, meaning their friend won't get in. No big, he was DPS. Fill the spot, go in. Get whispered during the first pull to kick "some scrub" so jerk DPS who left can OT with his friend healing him. Um, no. We're full. Bye.

Vault 10 goes down without a hitch past the singular whisper.

25 is where it gets ugly.

I'm filling spots, doing my best to get this moving smoothly. We have plenty of time, so no rush. I get all the necessary people and then it's just DPS. The raid pretty much went downhill from there.

The following occurred in painful fashion:

1. Rogue attempts to get me to kick another rogue so he can have sole shot at rogue gear. I refuse, and he demands to be given any rogue gear that drops. I tell him loot will be given out based on rolls, and if he doesn't like it, he can leave. He stays.
2. I have to kick a shaman out of the raid because I didn't notice I had invited someone from a guild known to be complete and utter asshats and ninjas (and be proud of it). For the record, if you play on Dark Iron (US) Alliance side, do not group with Scorpion Kick members or you will regret it. And please, stop giving them the attention they want. If you have to say anything, simply state that they are ninjas, and then ignore them.
   
3. First try at Archavon the OT d/c's twice, leaving the DPS helpless and dead. The boss enrages, we go down, people leave.
4. Turns out that the rogue who the other had wanted to kick has only done 800 DPS. As a rogue. At level 80. They leave, and I feel torn between the fact that they really did not belong there at all and that I had done both the right and wrong thing by not booting them because the other rogue asked me, but diminishing the raid by bringing along someone who could not pull their own weight.
5. Second try on Archavon, DPS on the steps bug out the boss so he evades the new OT's taunts. DPS die, we wipe. Start over, have to get more DPS for people who leave. Instance is close to reset.
6. Invite a hunter who will not get off the steps despite raid warnings before engagement and three during the fight. He is removed from the raid.
7. Archavon goes down with less than three minutes to distribute loot before instance reset. Loot is handed out quickly, people are rezzed as fast as possible, and everyone gets everything before we are ported out.
8. Upon porting out, it's found that, despite the Master Looter having clicked her name prior to being ported, a priest did not receive her robes. Or her badges.
9. I die inside.

Both the priest and I filed GM tickets in order to get her robes. Through out the process, the priest was the nicest ever even though she had to live through two wipes and the possibility she could not receive her robes or emblems. Through talking with a GM and sorting through a misunderstanding (the GM had mistakenly closed her ticket thinking it was a raid-wide issue; thankfully the same GM talked to me, realized the mistake and reopened it), her ticket has been escalated and she should receive that which is due her.

This disaster stands in stark contrast to the PUG 25 and 10 I lead two weeks before, which went off without a hitch and everyone was nice, did what they were supposed to and stayed connected. It seemed like the night of the pushy individuals, as when we did pug OS 10 (no drakes) later, the healer who "had to leave in 20 minutes" kept trying to boss the tank around.

At least I got my Protodrake Whelp this morning out of my very first egg.

/sigh

GUYS I DON'T HAVE ANY LEGS

Like a true internet dork-geek-nerd, I read webcomics. Lots and lots of webcomics, about everything from the high school dramaz to the delightful adventures of whacked-out carebears, from seriously cute veggie heads to thought-provoking stick figures, from that magical duo that made my server so popular to Bear's fave warlock of doom and everything in-between. However, when I switched computers, I forgot a lot of old ones and picked up a bunch of new ones, and have been expanding my horizons.

One of the ones I "lost" is called Awkward Zombie, a collection of largely non-sequitur comics about Pokemon, Super Smash Bros., the artist's life, and, of course, World of Warcraft. The Stoppable Force or Llanion (I unfortunately don't remember which...) linked to this comic in Blog Azeroth chat, and I was excited; I had missed them but forgotten the name.

Going back through the archives, I found one comic in particular that left me in stitches for about ten minutes, and so now I share it with you via link.

The Root of the Problem

Enjoy! I know I did!