Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
General news and opinion about WoW.
Note: Statistics may be grossly exaggerated. Or even entirely made up. Who knows?
I’ve started to hijack the TnB blogging space. I don’t have a set schedule or anything and these types of posts take an insane amount of inspiration to write. Anna’s been really good at covering the technical aspects of blogging. My role there is to be the coach and make sure you actually do it.
Matticus the… Motivator? Hmm.
This is a SYTYCB entry from Sydera, one of the top 7 finalists.
Dear Badge of Justice,
I hate you. You ruined my virtual life. You made me dread logging in to my favorite video game, and you even made me resent my in-game friends. You made me wish 5-mans had never been invented. Because of you, I heard Aran’s voice over and over again in my dreams, saying “Torment me no more!” Now I understand exactly what he’s talking about.
At first, you didn’t seem like such a menace. There weren’t many of you. Before Patch 2.4, I didn’t find you on every piece of road kill I came across. When I did manage to collect a few of you, there was usually something I could buy. But one fateful day, we heard that a foxy new Draenei, Smith Hauthaa, was coming to town with a bag full of goodies. On that day, the World of Warcraft changed forever.
I used to think I was in a normal guild. We ran SSC and TK three nights a week, and we looked pretty damn good in our Tier 5 gear. However, when the official news about patch 2.4 arrived, everyone’s priorities suddenly shifted. On off nights, everyone used to level alts, PVP, do pre-mades, or even make the occasional run on Halaa. We used to have fun.
Patch 2.4 produced gear spreadsheets and a magical number called “total badges needed,” which for me was 485. Suddenly, O Badge of Justice, we needed you! Everyone began to bemoan how far behind they were in collecting you. The guild turned into a virtual Beverly Hills where everyone watched everyone else to see who was ahead and who was behind. Our three-day raid week turned into seven, and suddenly the officers had to schedule heroics every day, all for love of the mighty Badge of Justice. After raids ended, at 1:00 a.m. EST, we started running the daily heroic, forgoing blissful slumber to tangle with Underbats and Tempest-Forge Patrollers in the darkest watches of the night.
Finally, that witch Hauthaa agreed to take you, precious Badge of Justice, in exchange for purple pixels the likes of which had scarcely been seen outside the walls of the Black Temple. Set bonuses were broken and the beauty of Blizzard’s tier designs were scarred by mismatched thread, metal, and baubles. Badge of Justice, you made me ugly, worthy of the fashion disaster page in US Weekly. Just take a look at the skirt you made me wear – it’s made of skunk hide, latex, and paper clips. At least I can mask its hideousness with my tree form.
But your foul deeds did not stop there. After our guild’s greed was finally satiated by hundreds of those twisted blue tiles, we turned to hills of Mount Hyjal and the dark corridors of the Black Temple for our next challenge. We killed bosses, and we wanted new rewards – but guess what? Because of you, Badge of Justice, we disenchanted the items won from guild first kills. The great pieces of T6 loot, once the stuff of legend, were left to rot. My heart wept for the Kilt of Immortal Nature, for the Guise of the Tidal Lurker. Their beauty went to waste while you triumphed.
Meanwhile, I continue to find you on nearly every raid boss in the game, mocking me. Endless copies of you fill my bags without purpose. I can no longer sell the gems you would procure. I need no Moonkin gear, and you won’t let me transfer you to my warlock alt, who might appreciate your charity.
And now, what do I hear? In Wrath of the Lich King there will be not just one descendant in your cruel lineage, but three, one for each new tier of raiding. Can it be true that we will have to collect your kin at each level of our future play? We raiders do not need you. We could get the regular gear out of 25-man instances. Yet, some will always look to you to gain an advantage, and as long as I feel any loyalty for my guildmates, I will be in your thrall, for what group can succeed without a healer? I will run Naxxramas until my branches fall off, even as my guild kills Arthas.
Badge of Justice, I curse you and all your relatives. You wasted all my free time and took the “casual” out of my casual raiding guild. Now, just when I have almost recovered from your foul influence, I hear that you will again blight the landscape of the much-anticipated Northrend. I, for one, will not be glad to see you.
Love and kisses (not),
Sydera
This is a SYTYCB submission from Joveta.
The main problem I face being a recent horde-reroll is the fact that my years as Alliance has left me with a pretty full roster of high-ish level characters taking up slots I could be using in newer, greener, hordier pastures. I’m only rarely a quick leveler, so I’m loathe to delete any character I’ve invested the time to drag slowly above the level 40 mark. However, I mercilessly axed all my 20-and-unders to try and get myself the start of a support system hordeside, namely a banker, a goof-off character I can play with my husband, and my current project: the hunter.
My hunter was created with a very simple purpose: to get her butt to 70 as quickly as possible (before the next expansion) and become my farming character. My priest is currently an herbalist/alchemist. I love alchemy and I love the money I make from herbalism. The thought of going Inscription in Wrath, however, is like whispering sweet nothings into the ear of my inner-min/maxer. I want to keep my Redeemer’s Alchemist Stone. I want to continue to be self-sufficient when it comes to my consumables. I also want some of those snacky Holy inscriptions, damnit. This calls for a fast-leveling alt! I know, a hunter!
Azeroth conspires against me, though my needs really are very simple. I want a zone with quest hubs that are logically laid out. I dream of a zone where my time actively questing is not dwarfed by the amount of time I waste in transit. I lust after a zone where I can hunker down and get a couple levels in without needing to hop a taxi twice, or spend more than 20 minutes running in a single sitting.
Azeroth, you suck.
It’s really hard to work up the desire to level my hunter; I’m spoiled by Outlands. The difference between the “new content” and the old is extreme. Both the Blood Elf and Draenei newbie zones are awesome. Quest hubs are well-designed, enabling quest-batching. With twinked bags, I can go out, clear 4 or 5 quests, and come back for turn-ins at about the time my bags started begging for mercy.
After that, level 20 is a slap in the face. I’m really not interested in (re-)exploring the wonders of Azeroth. I don’t need the guided tour. I especially don’t need to run up and down the length of Kalimdor twice because some idiot-NPC decided he wants the special flowers that only grow over there and if he doesn’t get them, he’s not going to give me the next step in the chain which actually gets me something I might want. If one more NPC sends me to another continent for the next step in a chain I’ve already spent 30 minutes in transit for, I’ll scream.
Maybe I should just forget the hunter. I already know I’m going to have to axe something or pay for a transfer if I want to play a Death Knight. Leveling gathering skills from 0 at level 55 will also suck. However, at least I wouldn’t be stuck questing on Azeroth.
Image courtesy of Willrad. This is a SYTYCB submission from Rusco who made it into the top 7.
Hey everyone, Rusco here.
There are only a few things in this game that bother me; super long flight paths, druids inability to crowd control inside most instances while npcs use similar spells without issue, and a warlocks fear. But on the top of the list sits something that doesn’t have to due with coding.
It’s the players. I feel like there are so many ignorant, stupid people that play this game.
It makes me feel elitist, to say the least, when I think of it and I hate it but it’s true. I tend to get frustrated when I’m grouped with other people I didn’t pick and chose to group with. Usually in battlegrounds, I can ignore the people yelling at everyone to give up or making stupid remarks. Unfortunately, it’s a bit harder in raids that I ask to join because I have to keep my ears peeled and my eyes on the screen.
Even in 5-man’s I still come across people that can get to me without actually trying to. Just the other day, I was in a partial pug run through slave pens and make a joke about one of my friends getting himself killed before we met at the entrance when our mage drops group because he didn’t like my attitude. I can almost understand, I’m generally sarcastic in my humor and if you’re coming from the point of view that all people are out to hurt one another then yea, I could have come off a wicked jerk. But this guy knows me in real life, we’ve played tabletop rpgs for two years. We’re not close, but it was a shock to see him react that way to something he should recognize as playful not harmful.
Slightly less specific, a good friend of mine has a podcast about world of warcraft and one of their usual features is “Real Noobs of Warcraft†and I badgered him until he included an idea of mine called the “back-seat raid leader.†Now that’s something that really gets me in raids. When someone other than the raid leader starts spouting off commands or details, especially when someone asks a question directed to the RL, I throw my head back and groan. It’s like, “Yea, we all know you’ve been around since beta or whenever. We know you’ve got experience in this game. But you’re not the boss. Stfu. Srsly.â€Â
Speaking of raids, is it too much to ask to have people arrive in a timely fashion and packing all the heat they can bring? I don’t think it’s too hard to find out what elixirs, food, reagents, potions, scrolls, weapon buffs, or whatever else you can use during combat that can benefit the raid as a whole. Sure, that may seem like a lot of stuff to remember but it doesn’t take much effort to check to see if you have what you need and if not to go get it. Not enough gold? One run through the Sunwell dailies and you’re good to go. What’s the problem there?
Now, I come from a casual guild, so it’s not required of anyone to be über prepared but I just don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to make sure the raid does it’s utmost best. I’m taking my time, but I plan on having what every class/spec needs for raiding because I’m sick of complaining and maybe then no one will have an excuse to skimp out. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy doing the research and work, but I hate hate hate that I come across so few that will actually do it for themselves.
Don’t get me started on people who don’t know how to play their class. I’ve heard a horror story from a good friend of mine coming across a shaman that didn’t know what a totem was.
World of Warcraft brings in so many different walks of life and luckily there are really cool, smart people that play this game. I just wish I could play with them, rather than just read their blog. Maybe I’m just being overly pessimistic but I think I’m either getting the short end of the stick or I’m just crazy.
It just occurred to me that a lot of readers tend to skip over anything that’s italicized. As a result, if you read the Doomsday Raiding column this morning that was written by my Guildmate Aylii you might’ve missed that subtle fact. Although there were some particularly stinging comments directed towards me, I definitely will not shy away from them.
Aylii came to me late last night and raised some points about it. I encouraged her to run with the idea and I’d help her make any technical edits and formatting along the way. I couldn’t pen the post myself as I was already committed to a last minute Karazhan and Arena point earning (which by the way culminated in Brutal Gladiator’s Mail Leggings for my Elemental Shaman and Brutal Gladiator’s Mooncloth Gloves for my Priest).
I’m delighted at the discussion that’s happening. One camp’s just shrugging it off and believe it isn’t going to be a big deal. The other thinks that it’s something worth stopping and pausing over.
My personal belief? Whether or not there are sweeping changes, I will welcome them with open arms and adjust to them as necessary. I’ve never really been one to complain about changes to classes or gear or what not. I’d discuss it, analyze it and try to give a thoughtful opinion about it. But I’ve always been one to accept changes to the game without fuss. Because I know that despite how much I may hate changes, I will always be a fan of this game and I know I will play this game for a long time. Even Starcraft 2 will only hold my interest for so long before I come back to WoW because so far no other game has offered the type of experience that WoW offers.
So I can either spend my time depressed about the patch or I can spend it constructively and devise new tricks to take advantage of it. And that is the way of Matticus.
Back to the post, I probably should have spent more time editing it and back checking it myself. My fault entirely and I certainly deserve all the criticism mentioned in the post. Everyone makes mistakes except when I make mistakes, it’s viewed by over 1500 people =D.
I’ve had difficulties in the past trying to ensure that guest bloggers and writers would get the proper credit they deserve. A post by Wyn announcing open season recruiting by her guild had readers think that it was Carnage which was recruiting (Matt’s guild).
Currently, I’m experimenting with a WordPress plugin called Post Avatar which would give authors the ability to embed a picture or a graphic to their post to help visually differentiate it even further. Italicizing and other text effects have failed me. I want to make sure that anyone who writes and anyone’s work who I showcase gets the proper credit that they deserve. I toyed with the idea of setting up individual accounts for people, but for security and practical reasons I shot that down. I may yet revisit that idea later on.
Ergo, I’ve decided to (at least as a temporary measure) append a little graphic in the corner of guest posts to serve as a gentle reminder that although it’s a damn thumpin’ good post, it’s not written by me.
(Mental reminder to crop out the whitespace on the left and top part of the image)
Guest posts right now usually have a little emphasized blurb at the top along with a link back to the original author’s blog, if applicable. Right now, if I were to publish a guest post, it would say that I have written it. Again, for practical purposes, it’s being served under my administrative account even though I was not the original author.
Now let’s hope it works!
On another side note, I hoped you’ve enjoyed today’s SYTYCB posts! You’ll be getting 3 more tomorrow with the remaining 2 on Thursday!
My raid’s been cancelled tonight which is a mixed blessing for me. That does give me ample time to work on the 3.0 version of Matticus, however.
Cheers and have a good evening!