What 4.3 means to me

Hooray happy patch day! So what does 4.3 mean to the guild and I? Several things.

1. Back to mom and dad fighting: Jess and I have done every new 5 man that was come out since back in BC. We have this tradition of doing them together on the first night. What does this mean? Well, typically it means a return to some form of bickering.

The bickering tends to center around me getting eaten by adds and telling Jess to tank better while Jess yells that I have to stand closer to him. I point to the first boss in Halls of Reflection before warrior tanks got whatever they got to improve aoe threat. Oh and the gauntlet part of Halls of Reflection wasn't easy that first night either. More recently, Jin'do in ZG caused lots of bickering between us as well as I got nom-nomed to death by the ghosts.

I'm not sure exactly which 5 man boss will do it for us this patch, but I know it'll happen. Probably on a boss with a lot of adds? Though we've been noting that it has been too long since we've bickered, and that's it's about time we do so again.

2. Endless BGs: With the change to conquest points, I expect to be back to doing a ton of bgs again. I am going to try to remind myself that I don't need to get all of last seasons gear in one week. Though this weekend is AB weekend (my favorite) so we'll see how well I remember that...

I do think that this change is going to affect the level of competition we've seen in bgs lately. Folks who have maxed out on their gear haven't had the need to do bgs lately. This has meant that we've often found ourselves in bgs with a ton of undergeared people. I'm looking forward to seeing well geared ally on my bg teams again.

3. See if our guild luck changes: I'm curious to see how our guild luck changes in Tier 13. Ironically enough this past Sunday night, we had our first ever warrior shammy hunter token drop in Tier 12 off Rag. And ironically enough (yes! lots of irony here!) The helm isn't something either Jess or Bruenok would use. They need the shoulder tokens but the helm tokens not so much. Sigh.

I'm also betting that whatever our rogue Violent has to collect for his legendary daggers will drop like hotcakes. Just because that is the kind of lucky bastard that he is.

4. Being out of fashion?: The staff and the mace never dropped for us. Sigh. I guess I'll hope to pick up something from the new 5 mans as soon as I can. However there is no piece from the 5 mans with both spirit and haste on it. Sad. I guess I have to let go of expecting or wishing for both of those stats.

So I am going into Tier 13 today with a Tier 11 weapon. Lawl. It's as if I showed up to a party today wearing these:

Though actually high waisted pants, skinny jeans, and shoulder pads have made a comeback. See, so I'm just being all up to date with the current trend of retro fashion by going into Tier 13 with my Tier 11 weapon. Don't you guys just wish you were as fashionable as I?

Though seriously, if these really make a comeback, I'm done:

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Random my ass

RNG? Seriously I think we should rename it RNGMA. As in random number generator my ass. Smoldering Censer of Purity still refuses to drop. Shared loot table? Yeah. Shared loot table my ass. (Warning, I am predicting an inordinate use of "my ass" in this post.) I don't even know how many boss kills we have in Firelands where this could have dropped. Cry.

There is actually a RNG situation even worse than my staff. We have yet to see the warrior/hunter/shammy token drop in this current tier. At all. We killed Staghelm for the first time on September 25. So we've killed him about 8 times. Our first kill on Rag was about a month ago, so I believe we've killed him 4 times, with a 5th coming this Sunday. With 12 boss kills with tier tokens, and a 1/3 chance each time that a specific token will drop, not a single warrior/hunter/shammy token dropped. I wonder if there's a way Blizz can make RNG just a bit smarter?

I think we've decided that we should change up who technically forms the raids. See, when you get as desperate as we are, we've resorted to blaming RNG on any number of silly and completely unrelated events. Jess or I always form the raids, but I think on Sunday I will make our rogue Violent form the raid. Why? Because he is the luckiest bastard in our guild! He got all of the drops he needed in Firelands weeks ago, often on our first kill of a specific boss. Let's look at Exhibit 1:

I think Lorosia logged out in his PVP gear and he also got bracers off our heroic Shannox kill last night. And of course from our heroic Shannox kill, the heroic dagger drops for Violent as well. So of our raiders I actually have the lowest iLevel. Damn 359 level weapon...

Exhibit 2: Another ranking that Guildox provides where I am on top!

I went through a crazy phase in the spring/summer where I was doing a ton of PVP on K to farm BG achievements. I haven't done much BGing on her in a while, but perhaps I will pick it back up on her. There's my little lock Kimchee in the 12th position and my gnome priest has done a bit of pvp as well. This weekend is Gilneas weekend, and I do still need a number of Gilneas achievements on K. I remember when I hit 50k honor kills, I honestly didn't think 100k was something I'd reach. If I go through another PVP achievement farming phase, it's definitely within reach.

So we got our first heroic FL kill last night. Last raid week we went in to try our hand at heroic Shannox and Staghelm, but didn't get either kills. Then last night we waltz in and killed heroic Shannox on the first pull. We tried Staghelm again, but as much as it pains me to say this, I just don't think we have enough heals to pull it out. We're pushing to 10 on the first scorpion phase, 5 leaps in the first cat phase, but then we wipe when we come back in on the second scorpion phase. The heals just can't keep up. I don't know if another heroic would be better for us to work on. Thoughts?

On one final RNG matter, has anyone gotten any PVE gear to drop in Baradin Hold? We never do. Say it with me folks. Random, my ass!

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Dusting off the pets and boo to statistics

So the whole pet combat thing coming in the next expansion... a part of me finds it hard to understand why people are so aghast at it. Not everyone at max level raids. Not everyone at max level pvps. This is just another option for people to spend their in-game time. You think it's childish and don't want to do it? Then don't. No one is forcing all players to raid or pvp either.

I for one am slightly concerned about the possible huge time sink with it. I want to see what its like, but don't want to get completely sucked in since I do raid and I do pvp. Maybe it'll just take the time I used to spend doing archaeology.

Anyways, I have thought about which pets I'd want to level and battle. First it'd have to be my sproutling. I hope as part of her combat animation, there is a tree punch. Kapow! I should start bring the sproutling out more to get her prepared. I probably need to find some Red Bull for her so she stops falling asleep, which could be a problem with this combat thing. Secondly, I'd bring out old Sebastian, my name for my Magical Crawdad. He will pinch your pet to death! Sigh... hopefully I don't end up spending more time on it than I want to admit...

So in guild news, we have been clearing Rag a couple of weeks so we've decided to dip our toes into hurroics. Post nerf, there hasn't been enough fighting between Jess and I on vent. So we'll see how the heroics go.

This past Sunday was my first raid in a bit after moving to Seattle and finally getting internet. You know while I was away from raiding for about two weeks, I expected the boys to be sitting around all sad and mopey raiding without me. I expected them to miss my delicious feasts and my sass and sarcasm. Instead their conversations centered around what they would do if the Smoldering Censer of Purity dropped while I wasn't there. Specifically, ideas around how they would rub it in my face. Fortunately the staff did not drop during my absence, but to the boys in my guild... I hate you all.

So Jess wasn't there for the raid this past Sunday. I did have to note that we killed Rag in less attempts under my leadership than in a sausage party raid that Jess led the week prior that I wasn't there for (hence the sausage party, in case there was any confusion there :p). I told Jess that this all proves that I am a better raid leader than he is. To me this is obvious, no? But Jess responded with "sample size of n=1 proves nothing oh sausageless one".

Sigh. Damn evil statistics.

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Blogging nostalgia

I don't have much in game stuff to blog about right now since I haven't been raiding in a bit and am without internet until Saturday. The horror of no cable or internet! So what else to blog about? Hmmm... let's do the slightly pretentious but often done (myself included) blog about blogging! Hooray!

Anyways. So I had lunch today with Beru, who I'm sure I'll continue to see often as I am now an official Seattle-ite (is that the word?) and we work a block from each other. At some point I started talking about old bloggers I miss.

How is it that we establish these connections with certain bloggers? What is it about them, whether its their writing style, choice of subject, or wit/sarcasm/sense of humor that resonates with a reader? Do bloggers who start their blogs at about the same time also get tied together with some invisible string of camaraderie?

So I started mentioning some bloggers who I really miss seeing. Like Kae at Dreambound and her stick figure raid guides. I know we would have killed Rag sooner if only I had her stick figure raid guides to Rag. I miss Tamarind's wit and insight and wonder where Gerard the Kobold's adventures have taken him. I miss Meghan and in my mind she is still kicking ass in arena or bitching at people in AV all with one hand so the other can swig whiskey straight from the bottle. I miss Larisa but see her pink pigtails holding a drink next to a cozy fire. And yes, it's been a while but I still miss Phaelia, who I consider the mother of all druid bloggers. She was the perfect combination of content, insight, and style/wit.

I guess I sound like a old blogger waxing poetic about the good old days. For a while now I have felt like an old fart in the blogging world. I hit my 4 year blogaversary this past September, but didn't mention it, just like older folks don't like to highlight their birthdays after a certain age. I also think the fact that I don't use Twitter also sets me back in that old blogger camp.

Quick sidetrack, which has a point I swear! Last month when I was flying back and forth from Chicago to Seattle, one of my flights showed the movie Midnight in Paris. The central character in the movie finds himself transported to what he believes are the golden days, Paris in the 1920's. During one of these trips back he meets a woman from that era and together they are transported back to the Belle Epoque, Paris in the late 1800's. It is this era that she considers to be Paris' golden days. When they meet people from that age and ask them what they consider to be the best era, they respond that it was the Renaissance.

While the movie has somewhat of a crazy and implausible plot, I found it kind of cute, but with a great message. The central character "realizes that despite the allure of nostalgia, it is better to accept the present for what it is".

Nostalgia is a funny thing. And its probably even funnier that I have it around WoW blogs and the blogging community. But as much as I think that the WoW blogging community was definitely different a couple years ago and as much as I miss certain past bloggers, perhaps I just need to accept and appreciate the current community and some fantastic voices for what it is today.

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Running out of passwords and other stuffs

O'hai there! Long time no see! It's been a crazy couple of weeks as I packed everything up in Chicago and did the move here to Seattle. I got to Seattle this past Sunday night after a long ass drive. I found North Dakota and Montana quite stunning though, and had unbelievable luck running into several bison herds in a national park in western ND.

Over the last 2 months I have logged into WoW from many locations. Two separate towns in NC, then Chicago, NM, Seattle, ND, and eastern WA. Battle.net seems to let me in with the authenticator when I log in from one new location. But then as soon as I head to a second new location without returning to my previous Chicago home, my account gets blocked for suspicious activity. My account has been blocked for suspicious activity three times in the last two months. I'm running out of passwords to use that I will remember! Stop blocking me! It's called I travel a lot! /sigh

With packing, then moving/driving cross country, and now settling in, I haven't been raiding. I don't get internet at home until this Saturday because I have to wait for my stuff to be delivered from Chicago. The boys have been raiding just fine though while I've been gone. I told them to enjoy their sausage party raids. I know they miss me though, even if they don't want to admit it. Who else would be there to micromanage them?

Micromanaging or love? Hmmm. I choose the latter. And maybe if the boys wouldn't give me things that I have to micromanage them about, I wouldn't have to micromanage them. Circular argument is circular?

Anyways, the last raid that I was in, I took out my brand new chopper mount that I bought for fun. Though apparently my chopper needs to come with a warning label. Isaiah jumped in while we were waiting to pull on Rhyolith and asked me to drive him around. Instead I ended up pulling the boss and the entire raid wasn't there yet. Then on a run back, Sam jumped in but I wasn't paying attention and I pulled some trash and we died. When we zoned back in, I did the exact same thing AGAIN. Seriously I have issues.

So Jess sent me a link to the New York Times article on BlizzCon, which I am sure has been noted elsewhere. Is media and general public perception changing? I don't know. Let's let my old favorite Chuck and Beans speak on that:

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