The “New” Virtual Community

Things change. We all know this.
I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
I want you to think back to a time when you had to actually look for a group.  Think back to the days of yore, back when there wasn’t a button you could press to find a raid or an instance group.
Back then, you were responsible for your actions. You had to communicate with others to get a group, also you were held responsible for your actions. If you acted like a jackass, you would start to get a bad reputation. That reputation would follow you, and haunt you for years to come. People would talk about you in Trade chat for years. Even to this day, I still hear people bad mouth jackasses that have either quit, name changed, or transferred off of the Argent Dawn server years ago.

Then we were given the ability to press one button and be put in a group with random strangers from our own servers.

It gave people a little less personal responsibility for their actions. It lowered the amount of communications needed to find a group, which lowered the amount of communications that went on in the group. You could still get a bad reputation, but it didn’t matter as much, since all you had to do was just re-queue for another group.

That all changed again, when the LFG tool started putting groups together from multiple servers. You were given free reign to do what you wanted to do, without any social repercussions. People stopped talking in group, people started acting worse and worse. They would drop the group if they thought you were bad, if you didn’t do what they said, or just to be a douche-bag. You could do what you wanted, you could say whatever you wanted to say. Gone were the days when if someone didn’t know the instance they could ask questions, and everyone else would explain it to them. Now they get laughed at, or kicked because they’ve never been there before.

The griefing got even worse when Blizz released the LFR tool. Now instead of being a jackass to just 4 other people, you could be a jackass to 24 other people. All you have to do is go on YouTube, and you can find examples of this.

But that is all about to change.

Blizz is introducing a new concept.

Virtual Realms.

New Feature: Virtual Realms

• Virtual Realms are sets of realms that are fused together, and will behave exactly as if they were one cohesive realm. Players on the same Virtual Realm will be able to join guilds, access a single Auction House, join arena teams and raids, as well run dungeons or group up to complete quests.

• Players belonging to the same Virtual Realm will have a (#) symbol next to their name.

Yep.  

That’s right, now if you act like a jackass in an LFR or LFG or a Scenario, all you have to do is look for the #. If you see that happy little symbol, then feel free to let everyone know how that person thinks that they are so special, that they can wreck any group they get in to.

Help them spread their reputation as a buffoon and spread tales of their jackassery. Let everyone know. This is not a smear campaign you’re running against them, it’s spreading the word of what they do, and how they act. If everyone does this, we can take back our groups. We can start to self-police ourselves again. We will start to see a return to players starting to respect each other more again.

So remember when 5.4 hits, and you’re running LFR, think before you speak and act. All of the community will be watching. They will know what you’re doing. You never know if they will pass on the tales of your actions, and in the process make it that much harder for you in all that you do in game.

Back in the Saddle Again

I know it’s been awhile, but things have been changing for me over the past month or so. Wife and I are slowing down our online shops, we started to lose sight of what was important to us. Since then we’ve stopped fighting, I’ve been sleeping more, and I’ve had more down time, which leads to more time to get things done in WoW.
I’ve maxed out my Cloud Serpent, Tillers, and Killaxi factions, and I’ve had time to start raiding again through the LFR.
That’s right, I finally got to raid again this weekend. It was a blast.
Galleon was up, and I got to take him down. He’s a bit harder than Shanger, more target switching.
Then I finally got a chance to hit up Mushgan Vaults also.
I had a blast, and for being in mainly 450 blues, I didn’t do too badly either. I didn’t die, and I wasn’t at the bottom of the meters either.
After hitting up both halves I walked away with a new back and piece, along with 4 out of the 10 sigils of power that I needed.
So slowly but surely, I’m getting the gear that I need to hit HoF and TotES.
Give it a few more runs, and I’ll be ready for them in no time.

Trapping, Old School Style

Everything comes back in to style eventually. Cataclysm brought CC back in a big way. I remember back in the ol’ days, when UBRS was a 15 man mini-raid, as hunters we had to know how to trap. When we finally were given the ability to drop traps in combat, we had to learn how to chain trap. What is this chain trapping that I speak of I can hear you asking? Well, it’s the art of keeping a mob (or sometimes 2) locked down in ice. Most, but not all hunters could do this. You had to be able to trap a mob at least once. The more you did it, the easier it got.
You had to keep an eye on several different things while chain trapping. Distance, situational awareness, aggro management, and communication were the keys to locking a mob down until it was it’s turn to die. The perfect example of the need for chain trapping was Morse in Kara. Morse came with 4 adds. The standard for taking them all out to shackle 1 or 2, then trap one, while then burn down the last add or 2. After that the shackled add, or adds, were killed. Our trapped add was usually low man on the kill order. We had to keep our add locked down until our target was called.
To effectively chain trap you have to know how long your traps hold, how long they have til they rot, and how long the cooldown is. They’ve made it easier on us by keeping the cool down on traps to 30 seconds. Once we’ve laid our trap, it stays there for 1 minute. Now it would seem that we would be able to have more than 1 trap out at a time, but we’re only able to have 1 trap of each kind out at a time. Now once our target hits our trap, it will freeze them in place for 1 minute, or until someone sneezes on them. Yep wet tissue paper is more durable than our freeze traps.
This brings us to our next point for chain trapping, situational awareness. You need to let your group know where you are going to be trapping, and where they are going to DPSing the kill target. Nothing sucks as badly as having your locked down mob break early because of careless AoE, while your trap is on cool down. Now the other half of being aware of what’s happening is your initial pull of the trap target. Depending on the fight, and the area you’re in, is going to determine if you have to pull the mob with distracting shot or putting up camo and launching a trap. The changes that Blizz are making to distracting shot in the patch are going to make it even easier to use than ever. No more /stopcast macro when you don’t want to auto shoot anymore. So your target is frozen in a block of ice, now what do you? Well, you multitask. You need to keep an eye on your target, while burning down the kill target. You want to make sure there is as much room as possible between you and the trapped mob. Now if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that your trap is off if cool down before your first trap wears off. That’s a good thing, it makes trapping your focus target that much easier. Now you want to tag the mob with a distracting shot, which will cause it to run straight at you and hit your next trap. After you have the mob frozen for the second time, put some distance between you two again and go back to shooting the kill target. Rinse and repeat as often as needed.
Now it’s time for you to go and practice your chain trapping. I recommend Nadrand. It’s spacious and there’s plenty of room. Just choose your target, and see how many times you can trap it. You should be able to trap it at least twice, but aim for 3 or more. See if you can start with the mobs south of the throne of elements, and chain trap it back to Telaar.
So, that concludes today’s lesson on crowd control for hunters. I hope that you learned a little, and I didn’t bore you too much. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Mountin Up And Movin Out

Ugh so I’m sure we’ve all heard the news about our beloved ZG. Come Cataclysm, it will be lost as we know. Now does this mean that they are turning it in to a 5 man? Are they going to make it part of STV? Is it just going away? We don’t know yet. All I know is that time is running out on ZG, and the mounts still aren’t MINE YET AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Now all I have to do is just rally the troops enough to run ZG each week…

So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Start of the Summer Slump

Here we are at the begining of summer, and the summer doldrums are all ready starting. Not only that, but the pre-expansion blahs are starting to get to me. I’ve hit 80 on 3 toons, and I’m working on my 4th one now. However, running the same things over and over again is starting to get, well repetative.

So I decided to start a Horde toon. Now to decide what to do. Do I start another hunter? I know the class inside and out. Do I start a warrior, one of the few classes that I haven’t played yet? I plan on making a worgen warrior when Cataclysm comes out, so it would be a good way to get to know the class. Either way I plan to make either an Orc or Tauren. I have the heirloom gear for both classes, so I could blow through the levels.
In other news Duranub is making a lot of progress in ICC. We are one shotting Blood Queen, and making progress on Professor also. I want to send out a big congratutaions to the Bel10 team for downing the Lich King!

So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Gear Score Is A Crutch

 

WARNING RANT AHEAD THAT IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK…

Gear Score. Every tool on WoW seems to think that, that is all that matters now. I am sick and tired of seeing this in trade…
“ICC 10 LFM Must have a GS of 5300 or higher”.

Really? A GS of 5300 for ICC 10 now? Are you smoking crack? Seriously, we have the ICC buff now. This week, the buff was increased to a 20% bonus to damage, health, and healing. You don’t need to be decked out in full ICC 25 gear to start running 10 mans any more.
I mean seriously, I’ve hear people use the excuse that they don’t want to carry you. That’s bullcrap, plain and simple. What you want asshat, is easy times. You don’t want to have to work for the gear or the badges, you want them handed to you. Piss off ya elitist jacktard… If someone is in full T9, but still doesn’t have that one or two pieces of gear to push them over your epeen standards, take them damn it. They will never be able break through your artificial barrier.

I’ve seen plenty of situations where a person with a lower GS, has not only done more damage, but has done more damage over all. It depends on the player, not the gear. You can pick up a Mark of Supremacy, and get a huge boost to your GS. However, the MoS is a piece of crap. It blows if you are at hit cap. However, if you are at cap or near the cap, you are wasting badges and a trinket slot. Drop that PoS and get a much better trinket. Go spend the gold on a Darkmoon Card: Greatness. Go grab a Mirror of Truth. Yes they are a lower item level and won’t raise your GS, but they will make you a better hunter.

This rant has been building up for a while now. As I’ve said before Daughter wants me start leading an ICC 10 soon. Wife wants to come along also, so we’ve been running randoms me, Wife, and Daughter to get them geared up for it. Both of them are now in full T9 gear, and now all we have to do is finish getting enough people together to start running. So any ways, Wife is starting to get discouraged about raiding because of GS. She was sitting in the AH and made the mistake of glancing up, and kept seeing ICC 10s being advertised. The catch was, you had to have a GS of 5300 or higher and they wanted you link your achievements. Needless to say she was completely discouraged by the whole thing. I told her that, that was bullshit.

Hmmm let’s see, when ICC first came out no one had a GS of 5300. We were in T9 gear, and maybe, MAYBE a piece or two of badge gear. We ran ICC 25s with that gear, and without the ICC buff ya pussies. Suck it up. Plain and simple you are not elite. You are not hard core. You are just some whiny little bitch who wants to prance in, and get easy badges and gear. You don’t want to work for it. You want everything handed to you. Deal with it, and check your epeen at the log in screen. Have you downed the Lich King yet? Are you doing ICC hard mode yet? If not, get the fuck off of your high horse and come back down to earth Major Tom. L2P plzkkthx. You think that you’re so leet, so uber, so powa… Guess what, you’re not. Now quit stroking your epeen, show me that you’re hard core. Go in to ICC without the buff. Take the person who doesn’t have the crazy GS that you require.

Just to give you some more examples, VOA, and the weekly raids. Easy stuff, things that my way under geared alts could belly dance through. Naxx? Gotta have a 5k GS. XT? Gotta have a 5k GS. I swear, grow up and get a life. VOA and the weeklies were made to help people gear up.
Huff huff huff. God I feel better now. Nothing like a little rant to help you blow off some steam. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

The Queen Is Dead Finally

That’s right kids the title says it all. After smashing our faces against her, we finally defeated her. It was close though, I think we had less than a second till she hit the enrage timer lol. Of course just to spite us one last time, she didn’t drop a hunter token, but the priest one doh!

So after that we moved on to the good professor. We took a couple of shot at him, and made it to his 3rd phase on our first night working on him. So after last night, only 2 bosses stand between us and the Lich King.

I started the switch to an ArP build this week also. After swapping out just a few gems, I’ve already noticed an increase in my DPS. I picked up a few more after the raid, and I’m slowly but surely getting them all changed over. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Is It Time For A Change?

When should you switch from agility to Armor pen. It’s one of the biggest questions, and decisions a hunter will have to make. There’s a lot of debate out there about it. Frostheim at The Hunter’s Union did an excellent post about it recently. According to him, as a BM you should look at switching when you’re around 400-500 passive ArPen. I broke the 500 Arpen earlier this week, so now I need to decide if I want to swap out all of my agility gems for Arpen gems. I’m going to be absolutly broke if I do. The Arpen gems run from 150-200 gold on Argent Dawn. If I switch, and it turns out to be a bad idea, then I’m screwed. The agility gem run about 180-220. I have at least 12 gems that would have to be swapped out if I switch to Arpen.
However, there is some good news. The test servers are up and running now. So it looks like I’m off to the PTR to see if it’s worth it or not. Keep an eye out for the results in a future post.

In other news I got a year older on Wednesday the 12th, and had a great time. Wife not only got me an iPhone, she got me a PONY! =)
So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

When You Don’t Get To Go

When you’re raiding one of the more disheartening things that can happen is getting benched. It happens, and it can suck. Be it on a farm night or a progression night, it can any time. Now when that happens you can handle it gracefully, or you can raise a stink about it.

The High Road

To put it simply, suck it up and deal with it. Yes we raid to get the gear, and to see the end game. However, some times we need to make sacrifices.

You are part of a group. Whether you realize it or not, all of the decisions are made to better the group. The mature thing to do is accept it, wish everyone luck, and find something else to do.

Yeah it sucks, you’ve were probably looking forward to going, but hey that’s life. Accepting that you didn’t get the invite with dignity will get you more invites than not.

The Low Road

Complaining, whining, and threatening will not get you invited. If anything, acting that way will make them LESS likely to invite you back. It happens to everyone, so suck it up and deal with it pork chop. If you think that being a pain in the ass to those that do the invites will endear you to them, guess again.

Speaking Up

Now if you don’t get an invite, and you want to find out why, it’s simple. Do it in a tell first. Calling someone out on the guild or chat channel will make you look bad. Be polite, no one likes to be badgered or interrogated. When it’s all done wish them good luck with the raid.

That concludes today’s lesson on raid manners and etiquette. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

What It Takes To Lead A Raid

Well my daughter recently restarted her old guild again. She asked me a rather strange question today. She asked me to start leading her 10 man ICCs when they start running them. She’s never been in ICC before, sand she only has 1 other person so far that’s in T10 gear also. Oh, and did I mention Wife is also going to be coming along? Now the big question is will Wife’s computer be able to handle ICC 10 man? If not will she be willing to use the desktop we have setup in the back room? Time will tell. The next question on the agenda is beer or xanax while I’m herding the cats? 😉

Duranub has 7 of the bosses on farm right now, and we’re working on Blood Queen. So I know the first 7 fights pretty well on 25 man, however I’ve never been to the 10 man version. So it’s time for me to do some research about all the trash, traps, mobs, and bosses we’ll find. Luckily, I have access to the interwebz, and all the great people in both House Stalwart and Duranub. So it’s time to start studying up on the difference between 10 and 25 man ICC.  So wish me luck, and pass the beer and Excedrin.

So now we’re working on gearing Wife’s hunter and the Kid’s druid. The 3 of us have started running randoms together, and hitting the weekly raid when we can. I’ll probably keep running them on Gwen until I can get enough badges to finish getting all the heirloom gear I want for my furry warrior, and the mammoth mount. After that, well it depends, I’m about to hit 80 on my shammy, and my DK still needs more badge gear also. So I guess it will depend on what I feel like at the time. It should be a lot of fun… and a little stressful.

So I finally had a little bit of loot luck the other week. Zod’s finally dropped for me and I hit exalted with the Ashen Verdict. So now all I need is the damn trinket to drop…

So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.