I Swear I'm Not Dead

Even though I feel like it.

I have an absolutely horrible cold. As is I'm pretty much brain dead, as well as throat-dead and nose-dead and achey.

So, I will distract you with this:


Bellwether Has Attitude by *DanisMuffins on deviantART

I spent a lot of time on it. So, enjoy!

I promise to get back to writing as soon as I can think properly.

WTF Gearscore

Though not exactly answering the original question, this post was brought about by a question posed by Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge on Twitter.


I don't really know when this started to be the "in thing," to check Gearscore before inviting people to a group. I don't know who started it or why. I just want to say, in my humble opinion (that you obviously wish to read as you're on my blog), that this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

There are multiple sites and addons that check the Gearscore of yourself and other people, and none of them do it the same way. So where on one you have a Gearscore of 5k on another you'll have a score of 2k. When someone asks you for your Gearscore, saying one could get you blocked while another could get you invited with stupidly high expectations of what your gear will turn out to be.

As far as I can tell, the Gearscore math works off of arbitrary numbers assigned to gear ilevel, gem rarity and enchant level. From what I've seen, there's nothing there about actual itemization, talent choice, experience...

What a useless, arbitrary mechanism.

I was in a ToC 25 where someone freaked out and left the raid because our raid leader didn't have a "good Gearscore." Though according to wow-heroes he did, apparently this guy's addon said otherwise. So he left, and we one-shot everything in ToC 25 with our PUG and our bad, bad Gearscores.

What in the world is the point of this Gearscore shenanigans? None of it matches up, you can trick it by just throwing on your vehicle-driving gear set. In fact, the only fights which Gearscore could be applicable would be Flame Leviathan, and even then...it's such a push-over without towers that there's really not even a need there.

I understand what it's trying to do. It's trying to streamline the process of accepting people into PUG groups so you don't have to go to the armory and check out their gear and specs and achievements yourself. But, really, there is no substitute to making sure, yourself, that the person who you are inviting is someone relatively competent in gearing, spec'ing and itemizing.

So, hey, stop being lazy and relying on a broken, arbitrary scoring system to make your decisions for you. And stop asking me about my "GS." I don't know it and I'm not looking it up.

To end on a positive note, if you still want to be super lazy, check out the Elitist Group addon. It's a little more in-depth than Gearscore tripe, but it's still no substitute for actually knowing what to look for in a PUG member.

Admit and Apologize

It hurts to look at something you've put a lot of work into, and realize you've done a bad job with at least one part of it. It hurts even more to realize you've been trying to ignore it, though it's been staring at you this whole time. Though people are reading it and you're confusing them, messing them up. And instead of fixing it you start avoiding it.

I've done a lot of things with this blog that I'm proud of. A lot. That being said, I've also done a lot of things I'm not. I've written things with completely faulty information. I've written things that were just plain wrong. I've gotten mad at stupid things, and looking back on a lot of what I've written I'm glad to see that I've come a long way. I don't always do well, or hit the mark, but I've done at least a decent job.

The regemming for haste post has bothered me since I hit "Publish Post." I knew I wasn't thinking about it enough, that I didn't have any real support for it, that it was just plain bad...and I published it anyway, so I could have something written and done between the time of finals and when I'd have some more time.

You've all noticed how poorly thought out, supported and reasoned it is. And I refuse to remove it, because people have made great points in comments. I've tacked on a disclaimer so people know not to trust what they're reading on it. But I feel it needs a little bit of follow-up past just rewriting. Especially as, well, the rewriting is going to take a while.

I am working on a rewrite to it. Unfortunately, part of the reason that post was so terrible is that I am not in a good place right now, both in and out of WoW. A huge deluge of real life problems and personal issues are pulling me away from WoW, which before was my haven from these things. I don't have a raiding guild anymore, and I don't feel it's responsible for me to apply somewhere when I can't commit at this point in time, and when you can't do what you enjoy in a game, it really sucks. But I still want to keep playing and keep writing, because it's still a nice break from things when I just can't deal with another problem blowing up in my face.

If there are other posts that come before the Gemming Haste rewrite, understand I'm not putting it off, it's just going to take a lot of work to try and do it right, and other things may get written in the meantime. I have posts owed other people, and I want to make sure they get done.

I don't know if this seems over-dramatic for a single post, but this blog and the information is contains is pretty important to me. I enjoy writing in it, I enjoy helping people, and when I print something so poorly done, it bothers me (and it bothered many of you). Please know I'm working to correct it, and if you want to keep commenting on the old one, please do. It can only help, and as soon as I can I'll address and fix everything.

Though it's likely not needed to be said, I request that those of you who know the specifics of some of the personal/real life issues mentioned briefly please not post any details of them in the comments.

Just Because It's Easy

With the random dungeon finder, I've been getting in a lot of groups where people don't know what to do, don't understand, have never been in a heroic before...and hey, that would be fine.

See, I have no problem with people being new to an instance. That's totally cool; everyone starts sometime, somewhere. The problem is people don't try to learn.

What am I talking about?

Well, let's take three anecdotal examples from my experiences, shall we?

First, Oculus. Yay, Oculus! Some of you may know that I love Oculus. However, Blizzard has nerfed Oculus into the ground so hard I literally had a group member stand on the electrified floor without moving out of the sustained breath-beam-thing of a sky captain with little to no heals without dying. This is really teaching people get out of the fire skills, tell you what.

But I digress.

See, the whole group but me (on Sugarcake; almost all of my bad groups are on my huntard) and the Paladin healer had never been to Oculus before. So, the Paladin and I attempted to explain the layout, the bosses, how to avoid pulling a zillion blue drakes, how to use the drakes...and we got through everything by brute-forcing it, until we got to the last boss. Continual explanations, drake shifts to give them something easier weren't helpful. The tank couldn't even find the drake vendor, still, after wiping multiple times. No one was paying attention, at all. It's not even "vehicles are hard" at that point; it's "you're not trying to learn."

And then...Old Kingdom. Oh my goodness, Old Kingdom. I got this instance twice in a row, and both times I had to leave early because it was just not worth the repair bills anymore. I felt bad about it, but I just couldn't stay.

The first time, the tank had no idea where he was going. This is okay; everyone has their moments when they're learning an instance. But he wouldn't listen when the group tried to show him the correct way to go, instead running in circles around the first boss's area, pulling extra packs of mobs that actually ended up wiping us a couple times (because, hey, no one is controlling the insta-kill spell flingers, and when I try to freeze them in place the mage is purposely breaking my CC). It didn't help the healer was continually AFK (or unglyphed HT healing), either.

The second time in OK, the tank was "undergeared" (i.e. in blues). Now, obviously these heroics can be accomplished by "undergeared" people; we did it in the beginning of Wrath. However, this tank played like he was in ToC epics, pulling without worrying about control or even threat, really. So, of course, spell flingers were eating people, lots of wipes were had. After the second boss, the DK DPS pulled a second pack of adds for no reason and killed everyone but the rogue and I.

As the Rogue and I talked, we discussed how if we didn't Misdirect or Tricks the tank, the adds wouldn't get picked up; but if we did, then he would die. My CC would get broken. No one was using defensive cooldowns. The Holy Paladin was apparently half-awake, and the tank liked to die in a blaze of glory. Half the time the rogue was evasion tanking or I was kiting or my pet was tanking.

When the tank pulled an extra pack of mobs on his way back in, I apologized to the Rogue and left the group.

It is becoming somewhat common that I find people think just because it's easy, they can do it without any sort of thought or care. They try to brute-force everything because many things can be brute-forced. They don't take into account that their gear can't handle it, that some things still will one-shot them, that they need to pay attention.

I could see how the current content would breed that mindset. After all, I remember logging in early when ToC first came out, getting extra consumables and reagents and feasts and preparing myself to stay on late, because this new boss had to be hard. After all, it was after Ulduar, and with only releasing one boss at a time, it was going to require some work, right?

We killed Beasts in 2-3 shots and went back to Ulduar. This left us totally unprepared for Hardmode, as we'd been lulled into a false sense of security by the ease of normal.

Some of it could also be that people skipped the "hard heroics" like OK and Oculus with gear resets, and now think they can just merrily romp through collecting their badges with no idea what they're doing. Which is, in essence, the same thing.

Just because something is easy doesn't mean it can't kill you.

Just because something is easy doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention.

Just because something is easy doesn't mean you can slide through it.

Just because something is easy doesn't make you immortal.

So pay attention. If you don't know, ask. Do your own investigating, even if that means simply reading the text supplied to explain how your dragon works. Slow down. Mark groups. Don't break CC. Look where you're running. Listen to your group members. And remember:

Just because something is easy doesn't mean you can't mess it up.

Bell Iz Teech U 2 Boomkek LOL

Iz 2 Big 4 Mah Blog ONOES. U haz 2 click 2 see!
<-- CLICK IT NAO



IZ U CLICKING YET



NO?



U IZ FAIL SAWSE



BOOMKEK IS 4 WIN OK

Bell's Guide to Application Failure

There have been some applications to Vigilant in the past month or two where I've just hung my head in shame because, well...what in the world were these people thinking? It's like they took every rule for applying to a place you wish to join, chucked it out the window and decided to be a special snowflake and just, well, put us off entirely.

So, now, I'm going to illustrate to you just how to get your application rejected from a high end raiding guild. Enjoy!

Step One: Ignore the application format.
The application format is obviously just a set of guidelines. It's not really information the guild needs to know, it's just stuff we want to know and, well, you can't always get what you want. Make sure to ignore half our questions, make up your own and don't answer anything fully.

Step Two: Log out in PvP gear.
Even though it says specifically on our site to log out in your PvE gear and spec so we can inspect it and ask questions, just log out in your PvP gear and spec anyway. Or equip your fishing pole. Or wear your RP set. Anything so long as it's not what we asked for. We will be very impressed by your full Judgment set.

Step Three: Tell us your opinion of our questions.
Don't like a question? Think it's pointless? Let us know. We think it's really important for you to pick apart our application process. This doesn't reflect badly on your character at all.

Step Four: Show us your care face.
Nothing's better than reading an application going "I just dropped x profession but I'll get y profession up right away" and then watching the skill level never rise. We also enjoy reading "yeah, it's unenchanted and I'm gonna enchant it soon, I'm just being lazy right now." Be in gear two tiers behind without having even pugged ToC 10 as well. This shows us you really care and really want to be a part of a guild working on ToGC 25.

Step Five: Bother us in-game.
Your application has been up for four hours and no one's said anything yet? Make sure to send us tells, lots of tells, in-game to anyone of your class who will listen. Let us know how many views your application has had, ask us our opinions on your chances of getting in, and definitely bother us during raids. We really like this.

Step Six: Reference people we don't know.
I'm glad someone on your server recommended you to us. We don't know who that person is, really, but that's okay. You could even be making them up! Especially as no one with that name has ever been in our guild, and if they had they probably would have told you their original name. This makes it look suspiciously like your application answers were copy and pasted from another guild's application, but who cares?

Step Seven: rite liek this.
U no WoW is just a gaem so gramar & spaeling dont mater rite.

Step Eight: Lie.
Lie to us. We really like when you've misrepresented yourself on your application. It starts building that foundation of trust right away. We'll know we can count on never counting on you to be truthful, and that's important.



That's about all that has recently occurred on our application forums. The sad part is, there may be a part 2 to this somewhere down the road...