Christmas Week (2 Jan 2012) - Free Falling Market, JB Sees Daylight
I was going to let Happy lead off, but Wild started nodding off by the second paragraph. So, Happy's diatribe has been repositioned - at the end. There is also Part 1 of the 2011 Year in Review already posted separately and in email boxes, and it's a rather long piece as well. Hey, you guys don't really want to work today, do you?
So, there is news from JB first. Be forewarned, Happy's week has not gone well, and JB only made things worse by suddenly deciding to become more active. JB had a large stockpile of herbs that Wild has steadily depleted doing all those Heroics and raids, as well as eating up large quantities of buff food that require fish to make. That didn't bother Happy. JB is quite capable of farming for those things herself, and he told her so in no uncertain terms. Said the same to Wild, who would benefit from that farming. Well, that got Happy in trouble.
Wild agreed that JB should do the farming. While she was at it, she might as well do a little leveling, said Wild, seeing as how she'll get some xp just from picking those flowers. JB thought that was a good idea, and asked if maybe she could get a little money for expenses. Happy went through the roof, but JB got her gold.
JB is level 84, and has been a level 84 for a very long time. She's far from reaching 85, too, at only 19% there. She has unlocked all of the zones she would normally level in, but for the most part have gained her xp through herb gathering, and has not done much questing or dungeon work. Over the past 2-3 days, though, JB has spent an hour here, an hour there, etc, fishing and flower gathering, mostly in Deepholm and Uldum. And when a quest presented itself, JB did those, too.
JB is now 65% of the way to level 85, and will continue to make a slow march to that goal. Her gear level is i315, not that that means anything at lvl 84. Oh, and JB quietly slipped into Wild's guild in order to speed up the leveling process. :-)
As for Wild, he has had a quiet weekend. But that changed on Monday night. Wild thought he might be able to crash Mf's Mon raid, but I was rather late getting on, and the raid ended up in the Firelands, anyway, so Wild didn't really miss out on anything. There was a guild asking for a healer for 25 man Dragon Soul, which sounded cool, so Wild volunteered. Wild got to talking with the raid leader while the guild was checking Wild's gear, and he seemed like a pretty good guy. They were happy with Wild's gear, and were ready to add Wild to their raid, when a terrible thought occurred to Wild. Wild had a Morchok kill in ten man DS this week. Before the 4.3 patch, the 10 and 25 man raids were on separate resets ... but not anymore. Even though it was only one boss, and in 10 man, not 25, Wild was locked out. Dangit! Wild apologized, but they didn't seem too put out about it. In fact, they let Wild know that they raid 25 man DS every Mon/Tues and would be happy to invite Wild along if Wild was interested and if they had a spot open. Wild is checking out their guild website and adding the raid leader to his friends list. Wild is very interested indeed.
The icing on the cake, though, was that after the 25 man DS fell through Wild went looking for a Baradin Hold run. Since it resets on Tuesday, there were several folks in trade chat trying to form up BH raids. One filled before Wild could do anything. The second needed only a healer to get going, and the third was asking for DPS and non-priest healers. Wild's first thought was to grab that last healer spot with the second group, but I wondered if there would already be a druid in it. Then I noticed the guild, which doesn't have a good reputation. Wild asked into the third group, and got an immediate invite. We killed the boss, no muss no fuss, and the loot was distributed. Wild was the only druid in the raid. The i403 (i403!) pvp leather healing boots dropped, which went automatically to Wild. Wild decided on the spot he needed to start pvping again, if only to show off his shoes. :P Then came the miracle. The second drop was the i397 Tier 13 leather healing gloves, which also went to Wild. These are for the moonkin Tier set, but Wild didn't care about that. It was an upgrade from i378 to i397 and moved Wild's gear score up to i385. What a great start to the New Year!
Now it's Happy's turn. Everyone turn on your glum faces. During the past week plus of the holidays, the only person unhappy with the festive season was Happy. What started as a dip in the prices of a few items, which Happy gleefully snapped up, slowly grew into a steady rain of price drops in more and more of Happy's staple products. Happy kept buying, knowing there had to be a bottom to this somewhere. The trickle is now an avalanche, and there seems to be no bottom to it at all.
Happy's first blunder was that he picked the exact right time to get into the market of Brilliant Inferno Rubies and it's enchanting mat, inferno ruby. Raiders were getting a lot of gear from the LFR and needed gems for the sockets. Wild, too, was getting all this new gear and it all needed those rubies for the gear sockets. Happy was having to buy them at prices sometimes as high as 375 gold apiece and he was getting tired of paying it. When prices dropped to around 290 gold, Happy bought several. Happy also convinced Philly to get the jewel crafting recipe, which she did, and Happy then bought the mats for around 270 gold. That was good business. Today, prices for both the gem and the mats dropped below 200 gold. Not so good; in fact, Happy is out a lot of gold if the price doesn't come back up, which isn't looking good. Having gotten burned, Happy is wary of buying too many of those 200g rubies, not sure if he'll ever make a profit on them.
Happy's second blunder was in the volatiles market. There are five mats normally in high demand - air, life, water, fire, and earth. They are used in large quantities and turnover was always high. Happy sold them by the hundreds every day. No more. Depending on the type, volatiles roughly sell between 7g and 25g on average, air being the most expensive (25g), and earth the cheapest (7g). That would be the average price paid for them on the AH. Taking into account that prices do fluctuate quite a bit, Happy usually sells at a higher price range, taking advantage of the fluctuations. The only fluctuations going on now are free falling prices. Happy went all in, too, buying them up at the ever lower prices, waiting for the bottom and the resurgence. It hasn't happened. Happy has over 1,000 volatile earth he dare not sell at the current price, which has dropped below 1g each. Volatile water, which Happy once sold for over 20g each, hit 2g each on the New Year. Nothing is selling and the prices continue to fall.
The one area that has sustained Happy through this terrible ordeal was maelstrom crystals, heavenly shards, and celestial essences. Wild can take a maelstrom crystal and make two heavenly shards out of it. The buyers and sellers of those two mats didn't seem to understand the connection, because Wild could buy the crystals for, say, 160g, make two shards, and then Happy would sell the shards at the going price of, say, 90g per shard. Which is a 20g profit. Happy had a similar racket going with the essences. Celestial essence used to sell at around 50-60 gold each, but in this one case the prices skyrocketed to as high as 150g each. However, there were large swings up and down, and Happy made a lot of gold by grabbing essences when they dipped to 100g, breaking them into 3 smaller essences, and then selling the smaller ones for 50g each when the price swung up, netting 50g profit each time. Well, the good news is that these shards and essences haven't lost much of their value. However, it has stabilized to the point that there is no price disparity anymore and Happy can no longer profit from it.
Happy's profits are off by about 150% per day right now. There is a nest egg that Wild can feed on for awhile, but I wouldn't hang around Happy these days. Happy is not happy at all.
PS - As I write this, the price of celestial essences has dropped from over 100g each to 65g each. Someone should keep Happy away from windows in tall buildings. He just might jump.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New Year's Eve (31 Dec 2011) - 2011 Recap Part 1: Guilds and Raids
New Year's Eve (31 Dec 2011) - 2011 Recap Part 1: Guilds and Raids
Happy New Year!!! This is the annual New Year's stroll through the past year. Today, Wild celebrated the start of an EIGHTH year in game. This year's recap of 2011 is in two parts:
Part 1 - Guilds and Raids
Part 2 - Family Matters
Part 1, Guilds and Raids, begins here.
Last year began with perhaps the most difficult raiding grind ever for Wild, and yet the year ended with what could only be called the easiest raiding of all time. Since Wild's focus is always on targeting those raid bosses, Part 1 of our look back focuses on raiding. And raiding can't be separated from guild drama, of which there were plenty.
On 2 January of 2011 Wild was a member of the MM guild. Wild had left his first raiding guild, FS, in Jul 2010 after five great years, when the FS guild turned hard core and had no place for Wild. The in game friends that Wild often referred to as his "cabal" migrated out of FS and into MM, and Wild had joined them in that exodus. The MM guild was already having growing pains, undergoing a reorganization into a "casual guild that raids," which was an honest assessment of a very large guild (426 members at the time) that didn't raid often enough or with enough seriousness to be called a raiding guild.
The end game raid as 2010 drew to a close was still Icecrown Citadel, which had consumed Wild and the rest of MM's raiders for most of that year. It wasn't until 5 December, 2010, that the Lich King fell and Wild got his Kingslayer title. Two days later the new expansion, Cataclysm!, rocked the world of Azeroth.
Cata offered four new raids: Baradin Hold (BH), Throne of the Four Winds (TW or Thrones), Bastion of Twilight (BoT), and Blackwing Descent (BWD). But raiding was not a priority that first month of Cata's release - leveling our toons from 80 to 85 was - as well as enjoying the Cata release in all it's significant glory. Wild DINGED! to level 85 the day after Christmas, 21 days after release.
Once we had enough guildies reach level 85, MM worked to get our raiding plans together. Our first Cata raid came on 9 Jan in Throne of the Four Winds (TW) with the G1 raid group. Wild was signed up and ready to go, wearing his minimum required gear score of i330. Wild did not get an invitation to the G1 raid. Undeterred, Wild set his sights on helping Bd get the G2 raid going again. Wild didn't have to wait long.
On 13 Jan Bd "stalked Wild for his raid." Those were his words. It was raid night, but Wild had not signed up given the issues over his gear level and what the guild seemed to think were unwritten minimum requirements. Bd had other ideas, though, and wanted Wild in his raid. In truth, Wild's now i333 gear level was the lowest among all but a couple of the DPSers. We raided Baradin Hold (BH) AND Blackwing Descent (BWD) that night. We killed no bosses, but Wild was now for real doing Cata raids.
There were also new Heroic five man dungeons, and they were tough. Here are a few quotes from Wild's first experience in Throne of the Tides:
"Wild was still a bit shell shocked at how ferocious the damage against the tank was. I might need to buy me a backup keyboard given how hard and fast I was pounding on it." - This was on trash mobs. We hadn't even reached the first boss yet.
"Every pack required maximum crowd control. DPSers had to focus fire the Marked targets as we could not survive that many attackers for long ... " - Again, these are trash mobs.
" ... after every battle, whether a boss attempt or a trash mob group, Wild had to rez the dead, heal the survivors, rebuff, eat another savage sagefish if Wild had been among the dead that time, and drink to fill his mana bar." We were downing bosses by now, but it was a brutal, slow, dangerous advance."
[Note: By comparison, in Wild's first foray in patch 4.3's Hour of Twilight Heroic five mans, Wild completed all three Heroic dungeons in under two hours with few wipes. In a couple of days Wild had them on farm. ]
In February things were not going well with MM raiding, though. The G1 raid was operating, but filling the raid was a weekly struggle. Officially, Wild was in the G2 raid, but it wasn't running at all. G1's struggles were to Wild's benefit, though, as he was always in demand on raid nights. Behind the scenes, a rift among guild officers spilled into guild chat toward the end of February and a prominent guild officer, Sh, quit MM and began making plans of his own.
On 1 Mar a new guild surfaced, headed by the departed MM guild officer. Wild dubbed the new guild MM2. They quickly had 54 members, including 20 level 85s, nearly all of whom had jumped ship from MM. That still left MM with over 100 level 85s. Most of Wild's cabal (including Bd) were still in MM, but when the MM guild leader did a call out for raiders, he scared up just six of us. And Lady Hunter was gone to MM2.
On 4 Mar, an MM G1 raid, infused with new hope and led by new raid leader Fn, killed Baradin Hold's Argolath. The MM guild had their first Cata boss kill. Said blog poster Martin about Wild's guild raiding hopes: "Looks like retirement is over. :)"
Guild drama did not diminish, however. More of Wild's cabal moved to MM2. Bd still professed allegiance to MM and scheduled G2 raids for the following week. Three days later Bd was enticed to move to MM2 by making him a co-guild leader.
With Wild's help the Fn G1 raid in MM continued to down Argolath in BH each week and also downed the first boss in Bastion of Twilight, Halfus. Though most of Wild's cabal has jumped to MM2, wild still remained in MM, along with good friend and cabal member Rs, a druid tank that Wild was the main healer for. Wild was raiding, and Wild was happy.
March moved on to April, and on 14 Apr Wild ran his first raid with MM2. Wait, MM2? Bd had personally requested Wild join them in Throne of the Four Winds (TW). The MM2 raid on TW did not conflict with Wild's MM raid since they were on different days and in different raids (BoT). Wild now had hooves in both guilds.
In May/Jun we were off on our RV trip to the east coast and back. When we left Wild was more active raiding in MM2 than in his own MM guild, where we had failed to fill our raid two weeks running. I had no idea what things would look like when we returned.
Wild's first login upon returning was on 16 Jun, and he had a chat with his MM guild leader, who happened to be in game. The Fn G1 raid was gone. The raid leader, Fn, was taking time off for family reasons. One of our healers quit the game. Wild's last remaining cabal member in MM, Rs, had not been in game for some time. In MM2, they were now running two raid groups, and Wild learned that Fn's hiatus for "family reasons" had special meaning. He was now in MM2.
Wild saw the signs, but refused to acknowledge them. Quoted from the 21 Jun post titled "Setting the Hook" is this: "Guild wise things are getting sticky once again, and even as Wild counters offers to join MM2 with Wild's famous reluctance to change guilds, Lady Hunter slips in a comment that "it would be for the last time, hun." Wild thought he'd never leave FS, and would have stayed even after the guild fractured had the remaining members wanted him. They didn't. He followed his "cabal" of friends to MM, and that move should have been "for the last time." Then most of those friends split off and started MM2. Wild has new friends in MM now, too, raiding friends. But MM2 is setting the hook. Sigh." Wild spent five years with FS, but after only 11 months with MM, things were not looking good. Wild still wore the MM guild tabard, but his first raid (BoT) in almost two months was with MM2.
The Firelands arrived on Tuesday, 28 June. On the same day Wild did what for him was a swift decision: "On Tuesday night Wild talked to his MM guild leader, letting him know that Wild was going to change guilds. We parted amicably, and there may be future chances for Wild to raid with MM ... On Wednesday I found the MM2 guild leader, Bd, on his blood elf in the Orgrimmar bank. He saw me, waved, and then scooted up to Wild and emoted: "What a big cow you are!" in that sultry blood elf voice. "What a beautiful, sweet looking blood elf you are" Wild cooed in return (a cooing cow can be a scary thing), and then gave him that unique tauren ROAR! I let him know that Wild was leaving MM. He put a fatherly arm around Wild (having to stand on his tippy toes to do so) and empathized that he knew what a tough decision it was for Wild to leave a guild. He continued: "So, when do you think you'll be leaving MM, and when do you think you might join MM2?" Wild replied, "I left last night, and any time you want to send me an invite." The invite was instantaneous, and Wild became a member of MM2. There were several guildies in game, with several friends calling out "Wild! Dood! Welcome!" All drama aside, Wild is happy to be in MM2."
On 11 July Wild made his first appearance in a Firelands raid. It was as a random PUG, not an MM2 guild raid, however. Wild got in on three trash mob sweeps, a process which became all too familiar to Wild over time.
Wild ached to get into more Firelands raiding, but it wasn't until August that Wild got into his first guild run. In fact, he got in two raids, his first with MM on Sunday, 31 Jul, and then with MM2 on Monday, 1 Aug. The MM run was a trash only run, but even so they had trouble with it. For the MM2 run, we did quite well on the trash and even took our first shots at Shannox, the opening boss. And on 2 Aug, MM2 sent a 25 man raid into BWD. We killed three bosses and had one heckova blast.
On 10 Aug we killed Nefarion and completed our first full clear of all bosses in BWD. The week of 11 Aug brought this wonder: "Wild raided with Mf's Firelands raid (the G1 raid) on Monday. Wild raided with Lady Hunter's BWD raid on Tues/Wed. Wild raided with Bd's BoT raid (G2) on Thursday, and is signed up for Friday. Three different raid groups in the same week. This is starting to look like the days of old ... "
The final boss in Bastion of Twilight, Cho'gall, fell on 31 Aug. We were going great guns, and was only later Wild realized that this kill was the year's high water mark for guild raiding. By the end of September MM2 raiding was looking good for the Mf/G1 raid, but neither Lady Hunter or Bd was raiding and their backup's struggled to cobble something together. In short, Wild was back to trying to get into Mf's raid on a fill in basis.
Wild's raiding continued to sputter through September and into October. It got even worse when he was left off the guild raid schedule in an unfunny comedy of errors that had Wild wondering about his place in guild raids.
Faced with the failing raid schedule, Wild had a chance to take a step back and take stock of his gear and his healing. In many respects Wild's approach to healing hadn't changed through many patches and raid bosses. Wild likes deep mana pools and high mana regen over most everything else, and that had never failed him. He knew about haste breakpoints and followed them, but had never even thought about reaching that holy grail of haste breakpoints for druids, 2005 haste rating. Wild decided it was time for a change. When he was done moving gear, gems, and enchants around, Wild's gear score dropped from i366 to i362. Wild lost 133 int, his mastery stats tumbled, and his spell power dropped 15%. Still, Wild managed to keep his mana regen at a decent level and reached haste rating 2005. That same night, a Tuesday, when with some surprise from us all we got a raid off the ground, we killed Shannox. It was the guild's first Firelands kill, almost four months since it first came into being. Wild learned to love his haste and his new healing approach.
Wild's greatest raid accomplishment of the year occurred on Friday, 28 Oct, and again it wasn't with his guild. He joined a Firelands raid as a PUG in a Blackblades alt run. Blackblades is a high end raiding guild. When the hours had passed and the final boss had fallen, Wild had helped down six of the seven bosses in the Firelands.
October became November and Wild had become a regular fill in for the Mf Mon/Tues raid. It was the only raid still active. At least Wild thought of himself as a regular. On 14 Nov, though, Wild was passed over when Mf had the unusual situation of too many raiders wanting in on the raid. Wild had even signed up for it, but that hadn't mattered. Wild was disappointed, but in the end guild raiding was already down to it's last nail in the coffin.
That last nail was driven in the week of 21 Nov 2011. Blizzard released the 4.3 patch "Hour of Twilight" and raiding changed into something we'd never seen before.
"Hour of Twilight" brought Azeroth three new Heroic dungeons and one raid called Dragon Soul (DS). DS was actually two raids of four bosses each called "Siege of Deathwing" and "Fall of Deathwing." Using the new Looking For Raid (LFR) tool, random 25 man raids started clearing all eight bosses within days of release. We were on vacation in Las Vegas when the patch went down, but on Monday, the night before the first week reset, Wild joined a DS LFR and downed all eight bosses without one second of preparation or knowledge of what was going on. The plundering of LFR DS had begun - let the endless farming begin.
For Wild, Christmas came early. Wild could now raid using the LFR every week with or without the guild. The i384 gear that dropped was slow to acquire, but almost certain to obtain eventually. When real guild ten man raiding finally got off the ground, Wild would be better equipped for it than perhaps he ever had been. So, take a look at what the LFR has wrought . . .
Here is the final wrap up of Wild's current gear/raiding. In about six weeks of effort, Wild has raised his gear score 14 levels, which works out to slightly better than two ilevels per week. That's scary fast.
Wild's Gear Score: i384 (i370 when patch 4.3 was released)
i397 - 4 pieces
i390 - 1
i384 - 4
i378 - 8
Tier Pieces - 1 T12, 2 T13
Set Bonus - two piece Tier 13
Wild's Raiding Success
6/7 Bosses in Normal Firelands
8/8 Bosses in LFR Dragon Soul
1/8 Bosses in Normal Dragon Soul
Status of Wild's Various Guilds - comparison of July 2011 to December 2011 (Dec 2011 in parentheses):
MM2 - Wild's current guild: max level 25(25), 310(386) members, 148(209) level 85s. Three 10 man raid groups (reduced to 2 spotty raid groups).
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 10/13 bosses (counting BH, BWD, TW, BoT), 0/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15 bosses (adding 2 new BH bosses), 6/7 Firelands in G1 (2/7 in Wild's G2), 1/8 in Dragon Soul
MM - Wild's former guild: max level 25(25), 188(146) members, 81(81) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 4/13, 0/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 4/7 Firelands, 1/8 Dragon Soul
FS - Wild's first raiding guild: level 24(25), 128(131) members, 60(66) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 13/13, 2/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 7/7 Firelands, 6/8 Dragon Soul
WC - FS spin off pure raiding guild: level 24(25), 74(71) members, 54(54) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 13/13, 1/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 7/7 Firelands, 1/8 Dragon Soul
Wild's MM2 guild is the only guild that has shown a significant increase in membership, including the number of level 85s. Wild's previous guild, MM, has shrunk, although they have maintained the same number of level 85s. MM's raid progression is even worse than MM2's. The two spin off full raiding guilds have maintained their sleek size and focus, but it is Wild's original guild, FS, that has prospered the most in terms of raiding success. I do have to acknowledge, however, that none of these guilds have taken on the challenge of doing Heroic level raids and can't even be called "hard core" raiding guilds.
Wild's final say - Patch 4.3 is now referred to as "Blizzard's loot pinata" and Wild has to agree. There has never been such easy raid farming of current content. For the coming year the question now becomes:
Will there be another major patch before the announced next expansion, "Mists of Pandora?" There should be. Dragon Soul will be a gutted corpse long before then.
Happy New Year!!! This is the annual New Year's stroll through the past year. Today, Wild celebrated the start of an EIGHTH year in game. This year's recap of 2011 is in two parts:
Part 1 - Guilds and Raids
Part 2 - Family Matters
Part 1, Guilds and Raids, begins here.
Last year began with perhaps the most difficult raiding grind ever for Wild, and yet the year ended with what could only be called the easiest raiding of all time. Since Wild's focus is always on targeting those raid bosses, Part 1 of our look back focuses on raiding. And raiding can't be separated from guild drama, of which there were plenty.
On 2 January of 2011 Wild was a member of the MM guild. Wild had left his first raiding guild, FS, in Jul 2010 after five great years, when the FS guild turned hard core and had no place for Wild. The in game friends that Wild often referred to as his "cabal" migrated out of FS and into MM, and Wild had joined them in that exodus. The MM guild was already having growing pains, undergoing a reorganization into a "casual guild that raids," which was an honest assessment of a very large guild (426 members at the time) that didn't raid often enough or with enough seriousness to be called a raiding guild.
The end game raid as 2010 drew to a close was still Icecrown Citadel, which had consumed Wild and the rest of MM's raiders for most of that year. It wasn't until 5 December, 2010, that the Lich King fell and Wild got his Kingslayer title. Two days later the new expansion, Cataclysm!, rocked the world of Azeroth.
Cata offered four new raids: Baradin Hold (BH), Throne of the Four Winds (TW or Thrones), Bastion of Twilight (BoT), and Blackwing Descent (BWD). But raiding was not a priority that first month of Cata's release - leveling our toons from 80 to 85 was - as well as enjoying the Cata release in all it's significant glory. Wild DINGED! to level 85 the day after Christmas, 21 days after release.
Once we had enough guildies reach level 85, MM worked to get our raiding plans together. Our first Cata raid came on 9 Jan in Throne of the Four Winds (TW) with the G1 raid group. Wild was signed up and ready to go, wearing his minimum required gear score of i330. Wild did not get an invitation to the G1 raid. Undeterred, Wild set his sights on helping Bd get the G2 raid going again. Wild didn't have to wait long.
On 13 Jan Bd "stalked Wild for his raid." Those were his words. It was raid night, but Wild had not signed up given the issues over his gear level and what the guild seemed to think were unwritten minimum requirements. Bd had other ideas, though, and wanted Wild in his raid. In truth, Wild's now i333 gear level was the lowest among all but a couple of the DPSers. We raided Baradin Hold (BH) AND Blackwing Descent (BWD) that night. We killed no bosses, but Wild was now for real doing Cata raids.
There were also new Heroic five man dungeons, and they were tough. Here are a few quotes from Wild's first experience in Throne of the Tides:
"Wild was still a bit shell shocked at how ferocious the damage against the tank was. I might need to buy me a backup keyboard given how hard and fast I was pounding on it." - This was on trash mobs. We hadn't even reached the first boss yet.
"Every pack required maximum crowd control. DPSers had to focus fire the Marked targets as we could not survive that many attackers for long ... " - Again, these are trash mobs.
" ... after every battle, whether a boss attempt or a trash mob group, Wild had to rez the dead, heal the survivors, rebuff, eat another savage sagefish if Wild had been among the dead that time, and drink to fill his mana bar." We were downing bosses by now, but it was a brutal, slow, dangerous advance."
[Note: By comparison, in Wild's first foray in patch 4.3's Hour of Twilight Heroic five mans, Wild completed all three Heroic dungeons in under two hours with few wipes. In a couple of days Wild had them on farm. ]
In February things were not going well with MM raiding, though. The G1 raid was operating, but filling the raid was a weekly struggle. Officially, Wild was in the G2 raid, but it wasn't running at all. G1's struggles were to Wild's benefit, though, as he was always in demand on raid nights. Behind the scenes, a rift among guild officers spilled into guild chat toward the end of February and a prominent guild officer, Sh, quit MM and began making plans of his own.
On 1 Mar a new guild surfaced, headed by the departed MM guild officer. Wild dubbed the new guild MM2. They quickly had 54 members, including 20 level 85s, nearly all of whom had jumped ship from MM. That still left MM with over 100 level 85s. Most of Wild's cabal (including Bd) were still in MM, but when the MM guild leader did a call out for raiders, he scared up just six of us. And Lady Hunter was gone to MM2.
On 4 Mar, an MM G1 raid, infused with new hope and led by new raid leader Fn, killed Baradin Hold's Argolath. The MM guild had their first Cata boss kill. Said blog poster Martin about Wild's guild raiding hopes: "Looks like retirement is over. :)"
Guild drama did not diminish, however. More of Wild's cabal moved to MM2. Bd still professed allegiance to MM and scheduled G2 raids for the following week. Three days later Bd was enticed to move to MM2 by making him a co-guild leader.
With Wild's help the Fn G1 raid in MM continued to down Argolath in BH each week and also downed the first boss in Bastion of Twilight, Halfus. Though most of Wild's cabal has jumped to MM2, wild still remained in MM, along with good friend and cabal member Rs, a druid tank that Wild was the main healer for. Wild was raiding, and Wild was happy.
March moved on to April, and on 14 Apr Wild ran his first raid with MM2. Wait, MM2? Bd had personally requested Wild join them in Throne of the Four Winds (TW). The MM2 raid on TW did not conflict with Wild's MM raid since they were on different days and in different raids (BoT). Wild now had hooves in both guilds.
In May/Jun we were off on our RV trip to the east coast and back. When we left Wild was more active raiding in MM2 than in his own MM guild, where we had failed to fill our raid two weeks running. I had no idea what things would look like when we returned.
Wild's first login upon returning was on 16 Jun, and he had a chat with his MM guild leader, who happened to be in game. The Fn G1 raid was gone. The raid leader, Fn, was taking time off for family reasons. One of our healers quit the game. Wild's last remaining cabal member in MM, Rs, had not been in game for some time. In MM2, they were now running two raid groups, and Wild learned that Fn's hiatus for "family reasons" had special meaning. He was now in MM2.
Wild saw the signs, but refused to acknowledge them. Quoted from the 21 Jun post titled "Setting the Hook" is this: "Guild wise things are getting sticky once again, and even as Wild counters offers to join MM2 with Wild's famous reluctance to change guilds, Lady Hunter slips in a comment that "it would be for the last time, hun." Wild thought he'd never leave FS, and would have stayed even after the guild fractured had the remaining members wanted him. They didn't. He followed his "cabal" of friends to MM, and that move should have been "for the last time." Then most of those friends split off and started MM2. Wild has new friends in MM now, too, raiding friends. But MM2 is setting the hook. Sigh." Wild spent five years with FS, but after only 11 months with MM, things were not looking good. Wild still wore the MM guild tabard, but his first raid (BoT) in almost two months was with MM2.
The Firelands arrived on Tuesday, 28 June. On the same day Wild did what for him was a swift decision: "On Tuesday night Wild talked to his MM guild leader, letting him know that Wild was going to change guilds. We parted amicably, and there may be future chances for Wild to raid with MM ... On Wednesday I found the MM2 guild leader, Bd, on his blood elf in the Orgrimmar bank. He saw me, waved, and then scooted up to Wild and emoted: "What a big cow you are!" in that sultry blood elf voice. "What a beautiful, sweet looking blood elf you are" Wild cooed in return (a cooing cow can be a scary thing), and then gave him that unique tauren ROAR! I let him know that Wild was leaving MM. He put a fatherly arm around Wild (having to stand on his tippy toes to do so) and empathized that he knew what a tough decision it was for Wild to leave a guild. He continued: "So, when do you think you'll be leaving MM, and when do you think you might join MM2?" Wild replied, "I left last night, and any time you want to send me an invite." The invite was instantaneous, and Wild became a member of MM2. There were several guildies in game, with several friends calling out "Wild! Dood! Welcome!" All drama aside, Wild is happy to be in MM2."
On 11 July Wild made his first appearance in a Firelands raid. It was as a random PUG, not an MM2 guild raid, however. Wild got in on three trash mob sweeps, a process which became all too familiar to Wild over time.
Wild ached to get into more Firelands raiding, but it wasn't until August that Wild got into his first guild run. In fact, he got in two raids, his first with MM on Sunday, 31 Jul, and then with MM2 on Monday, 1 Aug. The MM run was a trash only run, but even so they had trouble with it. For the MM2 run, we did quite well on the trash and even took our first shots at Shannox, the opening boss. And on 2 Aug, MM2 sent a 25 man raid into BWD. We killed three bosses and had one heckova blast.
On 10 Aug we killed Nefarion and completed our first full clear of all bosses in BWD. The week of 11 Aug brought this wonder: "Wild raided with Mf's Firelands raid (the G1 raid) on Monday. Wild raided with Lady Hunter's BWD raid on Tues/Wed. Wild raided with Bd's BoT raid (G2) on Thursday, and is signed up for Friday. Three different raid groups in the same week. This is starting to look like the days of old ... "
The final boss in Bastion of Twilight, Cho'gall, fell on 31 Aug. We were going great guns, and was only later Wild realized that this kill was the year's high water mark for guild raiding. By the end of September MM2 raiding was looking good for the Mf/G1 raid, but neither Lady Hunter or Bd was raiding and their backup's struggled to cobble something together. In short, Wild was back to trying to get into Mf's raid on a fill in basis.
Wild's raiding continued to sputter through September and into October. It got even worse when he was left off the guild raid schedule in an unfunny comedy of errors that had Wild wondering about his place in guild raids.
Faced with the failing raid schedule, Wild had a chance to take a step back and take stock of his gear and his healing. In many respects Wild's approach to healing hadn't changed through many patches and raid bosses. Wild likes deep mana pools and high mana regen over most everything else, and that had never failed him. He knew about haste breakpoints and followed them, but had never even thought about reaching that holy grail of haste breakpoints for druids, 2005 haste rating. Wild decided it was time for a change. When he was done moving gear, gems, and enchants around, Wild's gear score dropped from i366 to i362. Wild lost 133 int, his mastery stats tumbled, and his spell power dropped 15%. Still, Wild managed to keep his mana regen at a decent level and reached haste rating 2005. That same night, a Tuesday, when with some surprise from us all we got a raid off the ground, we killed Shannox. It was the guild's first Firelands kill, almost four months since it first came into being. Wild learned to love his haste and his new healing approach.
Wild's greatest raid accomplishment of the year occurred on Friday, 28 Oct, and again it wasn't with his guild. He joined a Firelands raid as a PUG in a Blackblades alt run. Blackblades is a high end raiding guild. When the hours had passed and the final boss had fallen, Wild had helped down six of the seven bosses in the Firelands.
October became November and Wild had become a regular fill in for the Mf Mon/Tues raid. It was the only raid still active. At least Wild thought of himself as a regular. On 14 Nov, though, Wild was passed over when Mf had the unusual situation of too many raiders wanting in on the raid. Wild had even signed up for it, but that hadn't mattered. Wild was disappointed, but in the end guild raiding was already down to it's last nail in the coffin.
That last nail was driven in the week of 21 Nov 2011. Blizzard released the 4.3 patch "Hour of Twilight" and raiding changed into something we'd never seen before.
"Hour of Twilight" brought Azeroth three new Heroic dungeons and one raid called Dragon Soul (DS). DS was actually two raids of four bosses each called "Siege of Deathwing" and "Fall of Deathwing." Using the new Looking For Raid (LFR) tool, random 25 man raids started clearing all eight bosses within days of release. We were on vacation in Las Vegas when the patch went down, but on Monday, the night before the first week reset, Wild joined a DS LFR and downed all eight bosses without one second of preparation or knowledge of what was going on. The plundering of LFR DS had begun - let the endless farming begin.
For Wild, Christmas came early. Wild could now raid using the LFR every week with or without the guild. The i384 gear that dropped was slow to acquire, but almost certain to obtain eventually. When real guild ten man raiding finally got off the ground, Wild would be better equipped for it than perhaps he ever had been. So, take a look at what the LFR has wrought . . .
Here is the final wrap up of Wild's current gear/raiding. In about six weeks of effort, Wild has raised his gear score 14 levels, which works out to slightly better than two ilevels per week. That's scary fast.
Wild's Gear Score: i384 (i370 when patch 4.3 was released)
i397 - 4 pieces
i390 - 1
i384 - 4
i378 - 8
Tier Pieces - 1 T12, 2 T13
Set Bonus - two piece Tier 13
Wild's Raiding Success
6/7 Bosses in Normal Firelands
8/8 Bosses in LFR Dragon Soul
1/8 Bosses in Normal Dragon Soul
Status of Wild's Various Guilds - comparison of July 2011 to December 2011 (Dec 2011 in parentheses):
MM2 - Wild's current guild: max level 25(25), 310(386) members, 148(209) level 85s. Three 10 man raid groups (reduced to 2 spotty raid groups).
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 10/13 bosses (counting BH, BWD, TW, BoT), 0/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15 bosses (adding 2 new BH bosses), 6/7 Firelands in G1 (2/7 in Wild's G2), 1/8 in Dragon Soul
MM - Wild's former guild: max level 25(25), 188(146) members, 81(81) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 4/13, 0/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 4/7 Firelands, 1/8 Dragon Soul
FS - Wild's first raiding guild: level 24(25), 128(131) members, 60(66) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 13/13, 2/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 7/7 Firelands, 6/8 Dragon Soul
WC - FS spin off pure raiding guild: level 24(25), 74(71) members, 54(54) level 85s.
Raid accomplishments:
Jul: 13/13, 1/7 Firelands
Dec: 15/15, 7/7 Firelands, 1/8 Dragon Soul
Wild's MM2 guild is the only guild that has shown a significant increase in membership, including the number of level 85s. Wild's previous guild, MM, has shrunk, although they have maintained the same number of level 85s. MM's raid progression is even worse than MM2's. The two spin off full raiding guilds have maintained their sleek size and focus, but it is Wild's original guild, FS, that has prospered the most in terms of raiding success. I do have to acknowledge, however, that none of these guilds have taken on the challenge of doing Heroic level raids and can't even be called "hard core" raiding guilds.
Wild's final say - Patch 4.3 is now referred to as "Blizzard's loot pinata" and Wild has to agree. There has never been such easy raid farming of current content. For the coming year the question now becomes:
Will there be another major patch before the announced next expansion, "Mists of Pandora?" There should be. Dragon Soul will be a gutted corpse long before then.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday (28 Dec) - Raid Moggers
Wednesday (28 Dec) - Raid Moggers
Wild's druid healing partner in Bd's Wed/Thurs raid has mogged her outfit into quite the sexy troll with a [Wicked Leather Headband] and [Raptor Hide Harness]. She shows she means business with a mogged [Staff of the Plaguehound]. Wild needs to get crackin' on his own set, and spent part of the day setting up his own mogged gear, but still has some work to do on it.
Wild wasn't sure if we could rustle together enough raiders to make a run into Dragon Soul, and waited anxiously for the raid to fill. We had eight sign up, but that doesn't mean much. While we waited I made some small but significant adjustments to my user interface (UI). I've been using an addon called Class Timer to monitor some of Wild's buff cooldowns, but over time those reminders got buried behind other things. It hasn't mattered much with the LFR or the Twilight Heroics, but in a real ten man raid they are very important. I've been testing an alternate addon to Class Timer called Needtoknow, and I liked it enough to retire Class Timer. Wild specifically monitors his Lifebloom stacks, Harmony, and Replenishment, all of which have to be refreshed regularly in order to maximize healing throughput and, even more importantly, mana regen for the whole raid. Needtoknow provides that in a simple and easy to read way, and Wild has it positioned directly under his raid screen so that it's always at hand.
We had an afternoon movie to go to today, "Warhorse," but made it back in time for Wild to jump into the 3pm guild planned DS LFR. Well, it was Wild's intention to get into that raid, but it had already been canceled when Wild logged in.
At the 6:30pm raid start time we had a pretty good group ... however, both of our raid leaders were detained and could not make the raid. One raid leader was our main tank, and our off tank never showed. We tried until close to 7:30pm to get a raid going, but it didn't happen. Frustrated with his guild, Wild jumped into a random DS LFR to get the first four bosses done for the week. On the first boss, Morchok, Wild won the roll on the i384 [Petrified Fungal Heart]. This necklace retires an i365 necklace, and with that gone Wild's gear is all i378 or higher. Overall, Wild is now at i384 gear level. I might have gotten a second piece - the Tier 13 gloves - but we had another one of those loot glitches. The gloves token was never awarded to anyone. Someone in the raid had a theory that seemed to make sense. What he said was happening is that loot winners must stand near the slain boss until the loot is passed. Leaving the area early mucks things up. Sometimes you can go back to a boss where loot failed to be awarded, and still win it if not a lot of time had gone by. I suspect Wild won the gloves, left too soon, and then it was too late once I had a chance to slip back and check. The boss that "would" have given me the loot was Warlord Zon'ozz:
Here Lies the Slain Hagara
I didn't get pics of the other two as their corpses were gone when I checked on them. It was actually kind of cool wandering through the portals to all the bosses after everyone else in the raid had already left. Wish Wild had gotten those tier gloves, though.
Hunter Fortress has been on vacation for a good bit, but hopefully we will all be able to get together after the New Year.
Wild's druid healing partner in Bd's Wed/Thurs raid has mogged her outfit into quite the sexy troll with a [Wicked Leather Headband] and [Raptor Hide Harness]. She shows she means business with a mogged [Staff of the Plaguehound]. Wild needs to get crackin' on his own set, and spent part of the day setting up his own mogged gear, but still has some work to do on it.
Wild wasn't sure if we could rustle together enough raiders to make a run into Dragon Soul, and waited anxiously for the raid to fill. We had eight sign up, but that doesn't mean much. While we waited I made some small but significant adjustments to my user interface (UI). I've been using an addon called Class Timer to monitor some of Wild's buff cooldowns, but over time those reminders got buried behind other things. It hasn't mattered much with the LFR or the Twilight Heroics, but in a real ten man raid they are very important. I've been testing an alternate addon to Class Timer called Needtoknow, and I liked it enough to retire Class Timer. Wild specifically monitors his Lifebloom stacks, Harmony, and Replenishment, all of which have to be refreshed regularly in order to maximize healing throughput and, even more importantly, mana regen for the whole raid. Needtoknow provides that in a simple and easy to read way, and Wild has it positioned directly under his raid screen so that it's always at hand.
We had an afternoon movie to go to today, "Warhorse," but made it back in time for Wild to jump into the 3pm guild planned DS LFR. Well, it was Wild's intention to get into that raid, but it had already been canceled when Wild logged in.
At the 6:30pm raid start time we had a pretty good group ... however, both of our raid leaders were detained and could not make the raid. One raid leader was our main tank, and our off tank never showed. We tried until close to 7:30pm to get a raid going, but it didn't happen. Frustrated with his guild, Wild jumped into a random DS LFR to get the first four bosses done for the week. On the first boss, Morchok, Wild won the roll on the i384 [Petrified Fungal Heart]. This necklace retires an i365 necklace, and with that gone Wild's gear is all i378 or higher. Overall, Wild is now at i384 gear level. I might have gotten a second piece - the Tier 13 gloves - but we had another one of those loot glitches. The gloves token was never awarded to anyone. Someone in the raid had a theory that seemed to make sense. What he said was happening is that loot winners must stand near the slain boss until the loot is passed. Leaving the area early mucks things up. Sometimes you can go back to a boss where loot failed to be awarded, and still win it if not a lot of time had gone by. I suspect Wild won the gloves, left too soon, and then it was too late once I had a chance to slip back and check. The boss that "would" have given me the loot was Warlord Zon'ozz:
Here Lies the Murdered Warlord
Wild also got a one on one shot of the last boss of the Siege, Hagara the Stormbinder, and got his picture, too:
Here Lies the Slain Hagara
I didn't get pics of the other two as their corpses were gone when I checked on them. It was actually kind of cool wandering through the portals to all the bosses after everyone else in the raid had already left. Wish Wild had gotten those tier gloves, though.
Hunter Fortress has been on vacation for a good bit, but hopefully we will all be able to get together after the New Year.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday (26 Dec)- Crunch Time is Coming
Monday (26 Dec)- Crunch Time is Coming
Ok, we've all been enjoying our Christmas holidays, I hope. Happy has been exceedingly busy raking in the gold even as prices on items such as maelstrom crystals, heavenly shards, and celestial essences go through the roof. Happy wasn't as fast on his feet as he should have been in regard to the volatiles market, however. Prices crashed and Happy was left with a lot of stock he couldn't sell. But prices should creep back up once the fire sale is over, and Happy will have plenty on hand to feed the new demand.
Wild did a good job this past week getting his two Dragon Soul LFR raids completed as well as doing the Heroics. Wild almost maxed his valor points for the week (950 out of the 1,000 max) and was able to use those points to purchase the i397 cape, [Woundlicker Cover]. Wild also upgraded his i365 trinket for an i378 trinket called [Foul Gift of the Demon Lord], which he won from Well of Eternity. Wild pushed his gear score up to i383.
Wild's guild is attempting to raid this week. Monday's Mf raid didn't get off the ground, though. Wild is signed up for Bd's Wed/Thurs DS 10 man and I really hope we get that one moving. What's the good of all this nice gear if I don't get to slay bosses!?
Ok, we've all been enjoying our Christmas holidays, I hope. Happy has been exceedingly busy raking in the gold even as prices on items such as maelstrom crystals, heavenly shards, and celestial essences go through the roof. Happy wasn't as fast on his feet as he should have been in regard to the volatiles market, however. Prices crashed and Happy was left with a lot of stock he couldn't sell. But prices should creep back up once the fire sale is over, and Happy will have plenty on hand to feed the new demand.
Wild did a good job this past week getting his two Dragon Soul LFR raids completed as well as doing the Heroics. Wild almost maxed his valor points for the week (950 out of the 1,000 max) and was able to use those points to purchase the i397 cape, [Woundlicker Cover]. Wild also upgraded his i365 trinket for an i378 trinket called [Foul Gift of the Demon Lord], which he won from Well of Eternity. Wild pushed his gear score up to i383.
Wild's guild is attempting to raid this week. Monday's Mf raid didn't get off the ground, though. Wild is signed up for Bd's Wed/Thurs DS 10 man and I really hope we get that one moving. What's the good of all this nice gear if I don't get to slay bosses!?
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas All!
Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas All!
I'm busy putting together the annual recap of all the going's on of the past year. I've got most of it done, but there is still another week to go.
In the meantime, the entire Wild Family wants to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. And an equally enthusiastic Merry Christmas! from me personally and all my own family; The Mrs, the dog, and our house full of cats.
I'm busy putting together the annual recap of all the going's on of the past year. I've got most of it done, but there is still another week to go.
In the meantime, the entire Wild Family wants to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. And an equally enthusiastic Merry Christmas! from me personally and all my own family; The Mrs, the dog, and our house full of cats.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Weekend - (18 Dec) Covering the Bases
Weekend - (18 Dec) Covering the Bases
Covering the bases includes both in game and in the ballpark!
Many players in Wild's guild are heavy into the transmogrification thing. I've explained "mogging" before, but basically it means collecting old gear for it's looks and then "mogging" your real gear to look like the old gear without changing the stats. It's a neat idea. As a result there has been a lot of interest in running old dungeons to get gear for mogging. Wild's guild has been making mog runs several times a week, and on Friday night they ran both Naxrammas and ICC. Wild wasn't able to make those raids, but more are planned over the weekend. Wild's mog set will be based on the Tier 1 Cenarion set from Molten Core, but Wild is also looking at other gear to complement/replace some of that set. Wild currently has the leg and chest from the set and has set aside a few other pieces that may become part of his mogged set.
Anyway, it's Saturday morning as I write this and the weekend is shaping up into a busy one in real life and in WoW. I'll be adding entries as I go.
To start, Wild got in the two dungeon runs needed for his VP boots, but got screwed over when Wild was not awarded the 150 points for the second run. I don't know what happened there, but Wild was royally T-ed off about it. I doubt the GM ticket sent will do any good. The dungeon was Well of Eternity, the middle dungeon of the three dungeon chain. With the Well done, players can move on to Hour of Twilight or leave the dungeon finder if they don't want to proceed further. When the final boss falls players generally wait to see what loot drops, rolls on them if they want anything, and then leave. Based on the several runs Wild has made now, it seems that if players leave group too soon, it's possible for loot distribution to have problems.
Wild's group killed the final boss, Mannaroth, and someone opened the cache for the loot. There was nothing Wild wanted, but I always roll on each piece anyway, even if I'm only going to Pass. That way there are no delays because someone failed to roll. Wild did leave before all the loot was distributed, and perhaps that caused the glitch. I don't know, but Wild was still 150 VPs short of getting his i397 boots. Wild is always going to check his VP totals before quitting group from now on to make sure he gets his VPs.
On the RL front, we're going to Petco Park (home of the San Diego Padres baseball team) today. We were invited by the team to come by - they are inviting everyone who attended games last season, and I'm sure it'll be a pitch to buy season tickets, but that's fine, we just thought it would be fun to go down to the stadium. The report on what we did is at the bottom of the post. It was fun!
At 3pm Wild went back to work. There are two guild raids planned for Saturday, a 25 man DS LFR run and then a another 25 man run at 6:30PM with the raid to be determined based on attendance and quality of gear.
There were ten of us in game for the DS LFR, so we queued up in our own raid group and let the LFR fill in the rest of the spots. We had two good tanks from our guild and one healer - Wild. We cleared through the trash and downed the first boss, Morchok, without any issues. On to the next boss, Ozz, where we had to clear the eyeball and Claw trash. While pounding through that, one of our tanks, Bd, DCed. The raid leader for the LFR Kicked Bd from the raid while we were telling him to give us a minute. I know that Bd had told the raid leader he had a guild group, but it apparently didn't make any difference that almost half the raid was from the same guild. I know that in these raids many raid leaders have a very fast trigger on dumping raiders who have any kind of problem, simply because that spot will be filled almost instantly. Then, someone aggroed Ozz and started the fight prematurely. Seeing the coming disaster, and pissed at the raid leader, the rest of our guild quit the raid. I hope that raid leader enjoyed the fight with no tanks and only 15 raiders.
We tried a second time, losing two guildies, including one tank, who bowed out. With this group we cleared the first four bosses with no significant trouble. There were more issues with the raid loot, however. A player DEed during the loot rolls and when that player never came back the tanking trinket that was being rolled on disappeared, screwing over our tank. Wild got his first T13 token, but unfortunately it was for the leg slot - the one slot where he already HAS the i397 T13 pants. It didn't really matter, though, because the token disappeared from Wild's bag when the raid broke up after killing the final boss. Sigh. Bottom line is that Wild didn't get any loot drops, but the valor points earned were enough for Wild to get his i397 boots. Wild's gear score is now i380.
Wild never made it to the second raid of the evening. On Sunday, though, after the San Diego Chargers kicked butt against the Ravens, Wild was charged up for some raiding. Wild queued up for the final four boss segment (The Fall of Deathwing). Wild entered the raid on the boat, which is the second boss in this segment. I almost pulled out to wait for one that started at the beginning, but hey, if I get the last three the first one will be easy to get later. We won the ship battle, followed by the battle on the back of Deathwing, and then the Madness to wrap things up. For the first time Wild actually led a DS LFR raid in healing, but it was still only around 15k hps. Wild really wants to see what numbers he gets/needs in a ten man because I'm just not sure what impact all this new gear will have on real ten man raiding. That won't likely be until after Christmas as no raids are scheduled for next week.
Wild did win a loot drop from the last encounter, Madness of Deathwing. It was [Maw of the Dragonlord], an i390 healing mace. Wild usually gets ecstatic over weapon upgrades, and this is a pretty big jump from Wild's current i378 dagger. However, it has no secondary stats. Instead, it has a gimmick equip buff that heals all players in front of wild on a 15 second cooldown. I've researched this mace and it seems that it does provide considerable healing in situations where players are grouped up, but Wild has no control over when it procs and will miss the +crit and +mastery on his dagger. Wild decided to give it a try, though, and see how it works out.
Oh, Wild waited around after the fight and then checked his VPs. I thought that killing all four bosses was required to get the 250 VPs for completing the raid, but Wild still got his VPs despite missing one boss. I guess the only boss that matters for the VPs is the last one. Also, for the first time in memory, Wild maxed out his points for the week, earning his full 1000 points. I'm going to try to keep that up and let that gear keep coming. And eventually Wild is going to have to start winning those tier tokens.
Back in real life, we went to Petco Park for our appointment with the Padres rep. We were there about two hours and it was a blast! The rep gave us a tour of the park - and not just the areas open to everyone, either. We got to go into the press box, into areas for players only (but not the locker room itself), the luxury boxes, and the private lounge/restaurant/bar for season ticket holders. We also got to go down on the field and into the dugout. That was truly cool.
For those not familiar with the Padres financial state, this is a small market team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. You might think that in a city of two million, and with a still new and wonderful ballpark, we would have no trouble filling the park. However, year round sunshine, lots of other fun distractions, and a significant transient population that usually has other home team preferences (ie, the military), makes selling tickets is a challenge. In 2010 the team surprised everyone by winning 90 games, and despite going back to our usual losing season in 2011, attendance was still up. With little hope for a winning team in 2012, though, attendance will be a problem. It didn't help us when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to the north of us bought two big free agents recently - the salary of just those two players (starting pitcher CJ Wilson and super star slugger Albert Pujols) would fund the entire payroll of the Padres - for six years.
The sales pitch was smooth but without any pressure. The rep started with the royal treatment, though, letting us sit behind home plate where the premiere season holders get seats. These folks get most everything for free - concessions, in seat service, valet parking, private lounge, etc, including entering the park in the same area where the players enter. The private lounge has one way windows that look directly into the bullpen. Now that is truly cool. All of that could be ours for the cut rate price of just $56,000 - yep, fifty-six THOUSAND dollars. We were impressed but declined.
We then moved around the park, checking out various seating and progressively bringing down the price. Honestly, I didn't think we would find anything that was cheap enough to buy season tickets for ... but the Padres are pretty desperate for butts in seats, and in turn I was surprised at the quality seats that were available on the aisle, no less, for the price. The team also has an exchange system where we can change our seats if we wanted or place them for someone else to buy when we aren't using them. My wife is as much a fan as I am, and you have probably guessed by now that we bought in.
The cost averages out to about $13 per seat (81 games, two seats per game). I love baseball. It's still hard to believe that we are season ticket holders. Oh, and I have a picture of me in the Padres dugout on the phone to the bullpen. I'll send that along when I get it off my phone.
Covering the bases includes both in game and in the ballpark!
Many players in Wild's guild are heavy into the transmogrification thing. I've explained "mogging" before, but basically it means collecting old gear for it's looks and then "mogging" your real gear to look like the old gear without changing the stats. It's a neat idea. As a result there has been a lot of interest in running old dungeons to get gear for mogging. Wild's guild has been making mog runs several times a week, and on Friday night they ran both Naxrammas and ICC. Wild wasn't able to make those raids, but more are planned over the weekend. Wild's mog set will be based on the Tier 1 Cenarion set from Molten Core, but Wild is also looking at other gear to complement/replace some of that set. Wild currently has the leg and chest from the set and has set aside a few other pieces that may become part of his mogged set.
Anyway, it's Saturday morning as I write this and the weekend is shaping up into a busy one in real life and in WoW. I'll be adding entries as I go.
To start, Wild got in the two dungeon runs needed for his VP boots, but got screwed over when Wild was not awarded the 150 points for the second run. I don't know what happened there, but Wild was royally T-ed off about it. I doubt the GM ticket sent will do any good. The dungeon was Well of Eternity, the middle dungeon of the three dungeon chain. With the Well done, players can move on to Hour of Twilight or leave the dungeon finder if they don't want to proceed further. When the final boss falls players generally wait to see what loot drops, rolls on them if they want anything, and then leave. Based on the several runs Wild has made now, it seems that if players leave group too soon, it's possible for loot distribution to have problems.
Wild's group killed the final boss, Mannaroth, and someone opened the cache for the loot. There was nothing Wild wanted, but I always roll on each piece anyway, even if I'm only going to Pass. That way there are no delays because someone failed to roll. Wild did leave before all the loot was distributed, and perhaps that caused the glitch. I don't know, but Wild was still 150 VPs short of getting his i397 boots. Wild is always going to check his VP totals before quitting group from now on to make sure he gets his VPs.
On the RL front, we're going to Petco Park (home of the San Diego Padres baseball team) today. We were invited by the team to come by - they are inviting everyone who attended games last season, and I'm sure it'll be a pitch to buy season tickets, but that's fine, we just thought it would be fun to go down to the stadium. The report on what we did is at the bottom of the post. It was fun!
At 3pm Wild went back to work. There are two guild raids planned for Saturday, a 25 man DS LFR run and then a another 25 man run at 6:30PM with the raid to be determined based on attendance and quality of gear.
There were ten of us in game for the DS LFR, so we queued up in our own raid group and let the LFR fill in the rest of the spots. We had two good tanks from our guild and one healer - Wild. We cleared through the trash and downed the first boss, Morchok, without any issues. On to the next boss, Ozz, where we had to clear the eyeball and Claw trash. While pounding through that, one of our tanks, Bd, DCed. The raid leader for the LFR Kicked Bd from the raid while we were telling him to give us a minute. I know that Bd had told the raid leader he had a guild group, but it apparently didn't make any difference that almost half the raid was from the same guild. I know that in these raids many raid leaders have a very fast trigger on dumping raiders who have any kind of problem, simply because that spot will be filled almost instantly. Then, someone aggroed Ozz and started the fight prematurely. Seeing the coming disaster, and pissed at the raid leader, the rest of our guild quit the raid. I hope that raid leader enjoyed the fight with no tanks and only 15 raiders.
We tried a second time, losing two guildies, including one tank, who bowed out. With this group we cleared the first four bosses with no significant trouble. There were more issues with the raid loot, however. A player DEed during the loot rolls and when that player never came back the tanking trinket that was being rolled on disappeared, screwing over our tank. Wild got his first T13 token, but unfortunately it was for the leg slot - the one slot where he already HAS the i397 T13 pants. It didn't really matter, though, because the token disappeared from Wild's bag when the raid broke up after killing the final boss. Sigh. Bottom line is that Wild didn't get any loot drops, but the valor points earned were enough for Wild to get his i397 boots. Wild's gear score is now i380.
Wild never made it to the second raid of the evening. On Sunday, though, after the San Diego Chargers kicked butt against the Ravens, Wild was charged up for some raiding. Wild queued up for the final four boss segment (The Fall of Deathwing). Wild entered the raid on the boat, which is the second boss in this segment. I almost pulled out to wait for one that started at the beginning, but hey, if I get the last three the first one will be easy to get later. We won the ship battle, followed by the battle on the back of Deathwing, and then the Madness to wrap things up. For the first time Wild actually led a DS LFR raid in healing, but it was still only around 15k hps. Wild really wants to see what numbers he gets/needs in a ten man because I'm just not sure what impact all this new gear will have on real ten man raiding. That won't likely be until after Christmas as no raids are scheduled for next week.
Wild did win a loot drop from the last encounter, Madness of Deathwing. It was [Maw of the Dragonlord], an i390 healing mace. Wild usually gets ecstatic over weapon upgrades, and this is a pretty big jump from Wild's current i378 dagger. However, it has no secondary stats. Instead, it has a gimmick equip buff that heals all players in front of wild on a 15 second cooldown. I've researched this mace and it seems that it does provide considerable healing in situations where players are grouped up, but Wild has no control over when it procs and will miss the +crit and +mastery on his dagger. Wild decided to give it a try, though, and see how it works out.
Oh, Wild waited around after the fight and then checked his VPs. I thought that killing all four bosses was required to get the 250 VPs for completing the raid, but Wild still got his VPs despite missing one boss. I guess the only boss that matters for the VPs is the last one. Also, for the first time in memory, Wild maxed out his points for the week, earning his full 1000 points. I'm going to try to keep that up and let that gear keep coming. And eventually Wild is going to have to start winning those tier tokens.
Back in real life, we went to Petco Park for our appointment with the Padres rep. We were there about two hours and it was a blast! The rep gave us a tour of the park - and not just the areas open to everyone, either. We got to go into the press box, into areas for players only (but not the locker room itself), the luxury boxes, and the private lounge/restaurant/bar for season ticket holders. We also got to go down on the field and into the dugout. That was truly cool.
For those not familiar with the Padres financial state, this is a small market team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. You might think that in a city of two million, and with a still new and wonderful ballpark, we would have no trouble filling the park. However, year round sunshine, lots of other fun distractions, and a significant transient population that usually has other home team preferences (ie, the military), makes selling tickets is a challenge. In 2010 the team surprised everyone by winning 90 games, and despite going back to our usual losing season in 2011, attendance was still up. With little hope for a winning team in 2012, though, attendance will be a problem. It didn't help us when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to the north of us bought two big free agents recently - the salary of just those two players (starting pitcher CJ Wilson and super star slugger Albert Pujols) would fund the entire payroll of the Padres - for six years.
The sales pitch was smooth but without any pressure. The rep started with the royal treatment, though, letting us sit behind home plate where the premiere season holders get seats. These folks get most everything for free - concessions, in seat service, valet parking, private lounge, etc, including entering the park in the same area where the players enter. The private lounge has one way windows that look directly into the bullpen. Now that is truly cool. All of that could be ours for the cut rate price of just $56,000 - yep, fifty-six THOUSAND dollars. We were impressed but declined.
We then moved around the park, checking out various seating and progressively bringing down the price. Honestly, I didn't think we would find anything that was cheap enough to buy season tickets for ... but the Padres are pretty desperate for butts in seats, and in turn I was surprised at the quality seats that were available on the aisle, no less, for the price. The team also has an exchange system where we can change our seats if we wanted or place them for someone else to buy when we aren't using them. My wife is as much a fan as I am, and you have probably guessed by now that we bought in.
The cost averages out to about $13 per seat (81 games, two seats per game). I love baseball. It's still hard to believe that we are season ticket holders. Oh, and I have a picture of me in the Padres dugout on the phone to the bullpen. I'll send that along when I get it off my phone.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday (15 Dec) - Loot Rule Updates
Thursday (15 Dec) - Loot Rule Updates
Blizzard hot patched the Looking for Raid (LFR) loot system on Wednesday. The key change is that many of the items that drop in LFR raids have been reclassified with "class only" tags. For example, Wildshard won the trinket [Seal of the Seven Signs] in a DS LFR raid. Before this recent change, any class that used +int had a chance to win the trinket, including classes such as warlocks, who could rightly make a case that they use both the +int and +haste buff stats on it. Now, that trinket can only be won by a healer class: druid, paladin, priest, shaman. Wild of course can still use this trinket. However, if a warlock had this trinket, won fair and square according to the loot rules at the time, that warlock will no longer be able to equip it. Blizzard doesn't seem to be offering players an equivalent, usable item. However, players that find they have LFR gear that they can no longer equip can petition to get back the item that was replaced.
I went through the complete list of gear that have loot restrictions that changed. Some of those restrictions favor Wild, giving him a better chance of winning them. The even better news is that no items that Wild could want are denied to druids.
Blizzard hopes this will result in better loot placement and less frustration among players trying to make good decisions on loot drops as well as players frustrated at any delay in their march through the raid.
This is one step of many they are trying to implement to make loot awards more appropriate to class and role - and eventually spec as well.
Oh, the changes are now being called the LFR Need Plus system. We have to have a name for everything.
All of these rules apply only to LFR raids, not to normal or heroic raids.
Wild is doing more than talking about loot rules. On Thursday Wild ran two more random dungeon runs. The runs went pretty fast with some DPSers that were rolling out insane numbers, like over 40k DPS. It was funny when the lowest DPSer complained a little that his numbers were so low because the other DPS had like i390 gear scores. We all laughed. Don't you want us to go all out? they asked him. Of course we did.
Wild got one drop, i378 pants that would have been a serious upgrade if Wild didn't already have the i397 T13 pants. Wild will end up disenchanting them for the maelstrom crystal. Happy is making a lot of money from Wild cracking maelstrom crystals into two heavenly shards, but as more and more gear gets DE'ed with all these dungeon runs, that price is likely to fall pretty far.
Wild is two random dungeon runs away from being able to buy his i397 boots (1650 VPs), which should happen sometime Friday. Wild was a little torn, since he will be upgrading an i378 piece while still having four i365 items to replace. Wild came very close to buying an i397 relic for 700 VPs as it would be upgrade his current i365 relic. The stats didn't fit well, however, and the overall benefit was better by waiting to get the boots. Wild had a miniature epiphany, though, when it occurred to him that he could buy the i378 relic with Justice Points, which Wild had little need for.
Wild now has a new relic, which has upped his gear score to i379. He was so proud he just had to check the gear on the player that has the gear level Wild aspires to: Silver. Gulp. Silver's equipped gear score is i387. Ok, back to work.
Blizzard hot patched the Looking for Raid (LFR) loot system on Wednesday. The key change is that many of the items that drop in LFR raids have been reclassified with "class only" tags. For example, Wildshard won the trinket [Seal of the Seven Signs] in a DS LFR raid. Before this recent change, any class that used +int had a chance to win the trinket, including classes such as warlocks, who could rightly make a case that they use both the +int and +haste buff stats on it. Now, that trinket can only be won by a healer class: druid, paladin, priest, shaman. Wild of course can still use this trinket. However, if a warlock had this trinket, won fair and square according to the loot rules at the time, that warlock will no longer be able to equip it. Blizzard doesn't seem to be offering players an equivalent, usable item. However, players that find they have LFR gear that they can no longer equip can petition to get back the item that was replaced.
I went through the complete list of gear that have loot restrictions that changed. Some of those restrictions favor Wild, giving him a better chance of winning them. The even better news is that no items that Wild could want are denied to druids.
Blizzard hopes this will result in better loot placement and less frustration among players trying to make good decisions on loot drops as well as players frustrated at any delay in their march through the raid.
This is one step of many they are trying to implement to make loot awards more appropriate to class and role - and eventually spec as well.
Oh, the changes are now being called the LFR Need Plus system. We have to have a name for everything.
All of these rules apply only to LFR raids, not to normal or heroic raids.
Wild is doing more than talking about loot rules. On Thursday Wild ran two more random dungeon runs. The runs went pretty fast with some DPSers that were rolling out insane numbers, like over 40k DPS. It was funny when the lowest DPSer complained a little that his numbers were so low because the other DPS had like i390 gear scores. We all laughed. Don't you want us to go all out? they asked him. Of course we did.
Wild got one drop, i378 pants that would have been a serious upgrade if Wild didn't already have the i397 T13 pants. Wild will end up disenchanting them for the maelstrom crystal. Happy is making a lot of money from Wild cracking maelstrom crystals into two heavenly shards, but as more and more gear gets DE'ed with all these dungeon runs, that price is likely to fall pretty far.
Wild is two random dungeon runs away from being able to buy his i397 boots (1650 VPs), which should happen sometime Friday. Wild was a little torn, since he will be upgrading an i378 piece while still having four i365 items to replace. Wild came very close to buying an i397 relic for 700 VPs as it would be upgrade his current i365 relic. The stats didn't fit well, however, and the overall benefit was better by waiting to get the boots. Wild had a miniature epiphany, though, when it occurred to him that he could buy the i378 relic with Justice Points, which Wild had little need for.
Wild now has a new relic, which has upped his gear score to i379. He was so proud he just had to check the gear on the player that has the gear level Wild aspires to: Silver. Gulp. Silver's equipped gear score is i387. Ok, back to work.
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