Fail and Win: You Decide

*Spoiler Alert*

For those of you who would like a sneak peek at the inside architecture of Ulduar, pre-release and unfinished, click this link.

For those of you who do not, don't!

Simplicity.

Months Behind...

...but I did it!

And immediately following were:
And, now...

to rest.

/sleep

Bag Tag

Macbook recently "tagged" me, asking me to show my bags and UI. Frankly, they're both a little embarrassing, but I'll show it anyway so you guys can have a good laugh. Ready?

Oh, the horror!

If you can't see well enough, you can click to enlarge it.

See the lack of keybinds, of addons, of bagspace? It's a real mess, aye. Since the move to a new computer, I've had no real reason to download a lot of addons. I'm only questing or doing five-mans; Decursive gets me through there well enough. I've downloaded Healbot but never opened it. As I've never had a computer that could handle running it, I'm dreading the initial setup period and learning to use it. My former UI bars, agUF, stopped cutting it for me before the move, and I've done no research since then.

But, enough about the addons. Onto bags!

First bag: Well, useless items of nostalgia aside, the first bag is for PvP gear. Going to the bank before going into PvP is a hassle. And, well, I can't choose when someone's going to show up to gank me, and I need to rez with a little more bite to my bark (hee hee). Okay, bad pun, no need to glare.

Second bag! PvP gear that wouldn't fit into first bag, and "fun toys." Racers, a trinket that makes me turn into an Arrakoa, picnic basket, fighting robot, letter from Sharlet I carry everywhere, seed-food for emergency rations, fishing pole, ZG lure, and ZG herb harvester. Also, my stopwatch for WSG. If it wasn't in my bags, I would never remember it.

Third bag: Moonkin gear. I did the same thing I always did and that was "forget to upgrade it until the very end" so it's still got a bunch of BC-baddies in there. I just snagged a new robe for it, which is nice, but I'm well-aware I should have been paying more attention to my quest drops instead of just grabbing and vendoring the plate items!

Fourth bag: Junk box. Random trinkets, quest items, consumables, reagents, holy water I've never dumped...just, stuff I pick up.

Fifth bag: General emptiness soon filled by mob drops and overflow from the junk box.

And there you have it. I'm a packrat with no bag space and a UI in need of some love. Don't ask to see my bank; it's worse.

And now, to tag others! Since I think Macbook wishes for just druid bags and UIs, I will tag:

Bear from BigBearButt
Leafy from Leafshine
Delos from Laser Chicken

Don't forget, even if you're not a blogger, Macbook would like to see your bags and UI, so send him some!

"EZ-Mode" and Disappointment

This new patch brought about a bunch of changes I'm unhappy with. At first I was a little more than unhappy, but, well, I figured it best to give myself a little time to think about it.

Anyone can get into UBRS; my Seal of Ascension is worthless. My Drakefire Amulet, pointless. My Mallet of Zul'Farrak, unnecessary. My Scepter of Celebras, a broken stick. And worst of all to me, personally, my urn for Nightbane is vendor trash worth 2g.

I was so proud of that urn. I was proud that when I pugged or ran Karazhan with a guild, that I had been able to get through that rigor of Heroics to summon a boss for more drops. Even when I no longer needed anything off of Nightbane, it was just awesome. I never took that urn for granted, and it never left my bags. Even now it stays there, along with my Amulet and Seal, useless except for nostalgia. My scepter and mallet sit in my bank inventory, and I'm debating vendoring them. Something I loved to be able to bring out for people's alts or help other people to obtain, now semi-decent blues at zero durability.

The "dumbing down" of WoW is something that has been bothering me for a while. To object to it is a showcase of elitism, to condone it a showcase of incompetence. I've never really enjoyed when WoW was made easier; I've taken advantage of it, but it was never something I was happy about. Not being attuned for Hyjal or Black Temple caused me to gain Exalted rep without any perks, and I had no quest line for Illidan. I was missing out on an epic component of the game. I was half-attuned for Hyjal and a third attuned for Black Temple by the time WotLK was imminent and I couldn't find groups.

I wanted the epic quest line. I wanted to be a part of the story.

It's just an upsetting trend. PUGs were clearing Heroic Naxx before a full week had passed after release. The common theme is, besides Drakes on Sarth, there is no progression. I was told last night that if I could get to 80 by tonight, I would be taken to Naxxramas. I replied I only had 1.1k spellpower, and they laughed. They were clearing it in quest greens.

The once-premiere end-game raid of the World of Warcraft, with the best items in-game and the largest difficulty curve, can be farmed by fresh 80's in greens who have even just a decent concept of the boss fights. Isn't this...sad?

It just feels like, one day, you're going to be able to push a button and Lurker will pop up, and you'll loot the ZG fish boss's bait from the fishing camp. You no longer have to do quest lines for anything druid, it seems. Only Bear Form has remained at this point; even the aquatic form quest has been removed. That wasn't even hard! I would argue the Bear Form quest requires more effort, but I don't want them to remove that, too.

Part of this feels elitist to me, which is why I'm so uncomfortable with expressing my dislike for the changes. Like I said, now "anyone" can get into UBRS. But it's not really that I'm objecting to. I'm not saying I don't want everyone to be able to do it. It's both the sudden invalidation of my efforts to become attuned and go through quest lines, and the feel that the only part of the game that is important is the expansion. Blizzard pushes and pushes and pushes, removing every roadblock because that's "old" content.

If there are achievements for old instances, what exactly do you "achieve" if Blizz knocked down all the walls? Now the only reason to do those quests is to become Loremaster. And they even lowered the requirement for that!

I felt a bigger sense of achievement when things in the game took a little effort and trying. Moreso than when Blizzard tells me I am or was achieving.

My Turn...

Okay, so everyone but me has had their weekly rant, blog-wise, anyhow, and I've yet to voice mine. Seeing as I'm famous for them, it's about time I catch up to the game. And my topic?

Arena.

Bloody, goddamn, pointless arena. I love it. I have no idea why, but I've been an arena junkie since the damn thing came out. I leveled a Paladin holy from 1-70 for the sheer purpose of healing my RL friends in their 3v3. I reveled in it, cheering as we dominated other teams, and giving rise to some of the guild stories that would be repeated for years (I'll share one that comes to mind towards the end of this post). I also cursed in frustration as Blizzard unbalanced this class or that class and we had to scramble to keep up. In Season 1 a Warrior friend (Nosaaj, a DK, now), a Warlock friend (Sileo, now a Rogue), and I rode to 2000, and got our titles briefly (before Blizzard took them away again, bastards). In Season 2 we held our own, and by Season 3 I was a warrior, and arena-ed with Bell, since Nos and Sileo had petered out of the PvP scene. For a pve sword arms warrior and a pve resto druid, we did alright.

I cannot tell you how I waited with bated breath for the new Arena Season to come out. That was the drive for me leveling to 80. I couldn't WAIT to try out my new pally (which I had rolled after reviewing the new paladin talents BEFORE everyone started playing them on the PTR, thank you very much) in the kill-or-be-killed atmosphere of the Arena.

Well, screw you too, Blizzard.



On the day of Arena release, I teamed up with another friend of mine, a Boomkin by the name of Greaseninja, and we hit 2s like a ton of bricks. Playing a comp that was by everyone's definition "gimp", we hit 1650 easily, but at 1700, we ran into a DK/ret pally team. And after that, another. And another. And another. Then the disc priest/rogue team. And the DK/DK team.

I have never used the "popular" comp. I never will, unless I have a friend that happens to be my complementary class and is interested. My 1800+ 3s team is a Boomkin, disc Priest, and Retadin....which wasn't common until a week ago. My 2s team is off-and-on a Feral Druid and a Boomkin, and we still maintain a 1750+ rating most of the time.

Needless to say, I became frustrated rapidly, not understanding how Blizzard could honestly think the classes were at all balanced....until I read that they didn't. Even in their early reviews of their own PTR they had commented on how broken the DK class in general was, how an innate 40% reduction of all damage and immunity to stuns followed by A COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO MAGICAL EFFECTS THAT GAVE THEM RUNIC POWER WHEN IT ABSORBED DAMAGE followed by ANOTHER 40% reduction in damage for 5 hits followed by a silence, an interrupt, a stun, a fire-and-forget AoE fear, and a catch-all crap-on-magic AoE shield was "possibly" a little overboard.

"Possibly" my ass.

But don't get me wrong, I don't have it out for DKs in particular. I hate paladins too. The self-serving bastards who bubble at the earliest opportunity and proceed to deal 100% damage with no detrimental effect other than a slower swing time, which doesn't even matter because your 3 main attacks are all instant anyway. How is that balanced there, geniuses? I once killed two of these FoTM scrubs at 1750 in 2s after they destroyed my partner....they both bubbled, I didn't.

Mages? Yes, because arcane blast takes a lot of skill. Playing a mage used to involve using your brain a little, and I had immense respect for the kiters. Nowadays? LOL SPAM WIN. I once killed two of these idiots too.

Hunters....don't even get me started.

But you know, all these little broken kinks aside, you know what burns my buns the most? Blizzard KNEW about them. They went through extensive testing, and discovered the problems early on...and released Arena anyway, announcing a patch that would FIX THE PROBLEMS WITH ARENA the same day.

Thanks for disrespecting the PvPers, Blizz. We appreciate it.

By the way, while you're fixing all the problems you SHOULD have fixed a month and a half ago, could you toss the Warriors a bone? I absolutely annihilate 9/10 of them without so much as tossing a FoL on myself. Give me a break.

- A Pissed Off Sannhet

P.S. Please, those of you with skill, who have taken the time to learn your class instead of rolling FotM clones, don't take offense, as this is not directed at you, and I'm sure you deal with the same things on a weekly basis.

P.P.S. The story I was going to mention was a 3s match against some random comp with the name "PWN UR FACE". They killed our warlock right off the bat, leaving the plate wall of my holy pally and our arms warrior. Scrambling for momentum, we downed their rogue and chased their hunter around. I became so frustrated at his kiting that as I HoJed him, I screamed into vent "YOUR FACE ON MY DICK!" and our arms warrior said stoicly "That's our guild leader /shrug" and executed the hunter on the spot. Good times, good times.

Rez. Your. !@#$%^&. Pet.

It seems like I'm not the only one with bad PuGs these days.

Now, as most of you know, I received WotLK late, and did not really start levelling until after the New Years. Now I'm 77 1/2 (yes, that's a level) and enjoying the conveniences of an epic flight form once again. I've also been pugging almost everything; as most of my friends are 80, half the time they'll be in raids or heroics when I want to do an instance.

Now, in doing so, I've met some really great people. For example, Arik the gnome warrior. He said he'd never done Violet Hold on some of the bosses before. Yet he adapted to every single one, and we never wiped. No one ever died. It was just flawless, and afterwards we put each other on our friends lists in the hope of running things with each other again.

Then...then came the Azjol-Nerub run.

Or, at least, that's what it was supposed to be. But the instance wouldn't let us in, so we headed to Old Kingdom to do that instead.

It should have been a tip-off when the hunter said they only had 800 arrows, and they hoped they lasted.

It should have been a tip-off when the mage didn't have reagents for a table or group buffs.

It should have been a tip-off when the shadow priest mentions she's tried Azjol-Nerub 11 times and only once gotten past the first boss, and never gotten to the end.

But, well, those are all "in hindsight;" people just happen to be forgetful, and these things happen. She could have been horribly unlucky with PuGs. It's okay, we'll be fine.

Then the ret paladin tank (he's 80, in tank gear, so I figured it would be okay), pulls two groups and has no concept of AoE threat. That's okay, though; his dps has no concept of kill-order.

We wipe on the first boss because, even though they were told to do so, no one killed the Guardians. The priests says she'll try to announce it, and I point out that the game announces it, in yellow, in the center of their screen.

We down him the next time.

The shadow priest starts pulling for the paladin, since he has no range. She uses Mind Blast, so she gains enough aggro the ret paladin cannot yank it off her, and she dies. Multiple times. Except for the time the ret paladin runs into a group, and pulls a second, and then everyone dies but me because I shadowmelded. It's about this time that I see they're all in the same guild.

Oh yeah, guess what else? I figure out that the hunter hasn't rezzed his pet since the first time it died. It was a warpstalker. I ask him where his pet is. The mage and him say that it is dead. I, of course, respond that he should rez it. The answer is that it is bad, so he doesn't want to. This is also the hunter that didn't bring enough arrows, and at this time is down to 80. I know someone who would be very dissappointed in you, sir.

Also...they're standing in fire. Repeatedly. After I say in chat not to. Review the results:

This was after the second time I had asked. And he wasn't the only one!

After the wipe on the third boss, I split. They said they had to go repair; my armor was only at half durability by that point, so it was obvious they came unprepared. I said I was done, left group, and went to Drak'Tharon Keep with Sannhet, where we killed everything with ease.

This group bothered me because I had never before felt so abused. I am overgeared for the level I am at, thanks to my dedication, research, and raiding in the Burning Crusade. I have made about four upgrades, maybe five since entering Wrath of the Lich King, and I still have over 1.1k +healing. My healing saved them from their own stupidity and clumsiness time and time again. I saved them from standing in the fire, from pulling too many groups, from being too slow on dps by pounding every key, every cooldown, every OSHI- button. And I know I shouldn't have; after all, I wrote an entire post about why that was a bad thing.

So why, then, would I specifically hide the name of one of them in that picture? Why haven't I called out their guild?

They were nice. They were not rude, or mean, they never yelled at anyone over wipes. It was obvious they were not hardcore players, and they were just in it for the fun. Even after wipes, they were like "it's okay, we'll try again." And I love and support that mentality. I left because I no longer wanted to carry them through the instance.

And trashing their guild would do me no good, at all. In Sannhet's group, we invited in a hunter (different hunter) from their guild. And he was great. Did everything hunters should do.

So, in the end, the four members of that guild, I will never instance with again. They were nice, obviously there to down some bosses and have fun, but they had not put any effort to be prepared or even really know what they were doing. They didn't follow direction well (which I suppose could be coddled by the "don't worry, we'll try again" attitude) and got me killed more than I liked.

Great people. Bad players.