Nerf QQ

Euripedes over at Critical QQ has a fairly strongly worded post about the upcoming change to the Emblems that drop from heroic 5-mans and raid instances. In case you haven't heard, the existing Emblems of Heroism and Valor will no longer drop; instead, we will be looting the new Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest can be traded in for Emblems of Valor or Heroism at a rate of 1:1, so we will still be able to purchase the existing Emblem rewards; of course this also means that we will be able to purchase the T8.5 items that are currently only available to Ulduar-25 raiders.

I'm not sitting on a fount of Emblems of Conquest myself. So far I have 6 on my main - 4 from FL+1 kills and 2 from a heroic VoA PUG. The soonest I imagine myself purchasing anything with them is 2 to 3 months from now. I simply have no access to more; unlike most other raiding Guilds, Rage On does not run 25-mans. We PUG anything larger than a 10-man raid.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting more Emblems of Conquest.

There's been a lot of talk about how much this move sucks; about how Blizzard is making it too easy for players to get good loot. It's led to a lot of QQ from players currently farming Ulduar about Blizzard cheapening their achievements. And like Euripedes, I wish they'd shut the hell up.

Nothing diminishes their achievements. Nothing.

As a raid leader going through challenging content, I'm actually happy to see this change coming in. I know my little raiding team is ahead of the pack. We're not attempting Yogg-Saron yet, but we're halfway into Ulduar. We have yet to kill a Watcher, but we're working on that. We're not a premier raiding Guild. We're a band of friends who likes raiding together, and we're actually good at what we do, for which we are rewarded amply by the game system.

Most players don't have even that.

Right now I have eleven - yes, just eleven - raiders. Two of them are married to each other. Another two are in a relationship IRL. If either of those couples takes a break from WoW or goes away for a weekend, we have to call off raiding until we can find replacements.

Usually such replacements are, at their best, Naxx-geared. Sometimes not even that. It's a given that they won't be delivering the same output as our regular raiders. Jizal, our lone Retribution Paladin, can put out 3.5k DPS on average. Last weekend we ran with a PUGged Ret Pally who brought 1.8k DPS to the table. Respectable, but not nearly enough what we need for Ulduar.

Because we only run 10-mans, and those on weekends alone, we also can't expect players hungry for new content to come on board. Also, because we're a close-knit community, we have to ensure that new players fit in with the rest of the group. The ability to get along with everyone in our Guild is more important than the level of one's contribution to the raid. We can help with performance issues. We can't help with personality issues.

The remedy is to borrow alts of friends or toons of people who have missed their Guild's scheduled runs - which we do as often as is needed. Again, we can't expect these guys to be geared, or to know how to play their class at a level appropriate for Ulduar.

Allowing these players and characters access to higher level gear gives them a chance to perform at the appropriate levels. It means that Ulduar-geared players can PUG an Emblem-geared player and expect him to deliver results. Better gear doesn't replace skill, of course, or experience - but it does help level the playing field.

I'm looking forward to patch 3.2. Like everyone not farming Ulduar-25, I'm hoping it'll deliver on its promise to make higher end content more accessible to players like me. That's a promise that Blizzard is bending over backwards to keep, and I honestly appreciate it.

First Weekend of Raids

We moved to Nagrand and changed our Guild name; we're no longer the Bank of NiHao (although that's still on Bloodhoof); we are now known as Rage On.

This was our first weekend of official raids on Nagrand. Here's what happened:

Saturday morning, 10 of us showed up and we stepped into Ulduar. We tried FL with 2 towers up, couldn't hack it, and took down one tower. Then we one-shot FL+1.

We killed Razorscale next and took a break from Ulduar to clear Vault of Archavon - our first time together as a Guild, and you can bet it's in our rotation now. I'd put up an Emalon kill screenshot as well but I forgot to take one.

Back to Ulduar, and we killed XT-002 and Kologarn in short order. Then we took a couple of tries at Auriaya, killing her on our third or fourth try. Hodir attempts next - 6 in total with not much to show for it. Then Ignis.

We attempted Ignis a total of 4 times (around the same number of times we wiped on his goddamn trash.) Then we called it a day.

Not enough people showed up Sunday morning, so we messed around and farmed instead. I left just before lunch as I had real life things to take care of. I went to my in-laws and spent a quiet afternoon in the company of family.

Driving back home, I got a text from Jizal (formerly Rizal) asking if I could log in. I was online within 15 minutes and got an invite into a Naxx run with a couple of PUGs from Happy Hour, a Guild we were looking at merging with when we were preparing to move to Nagrand. We cleared most of Naxxramas except for Kel'thuzad; unfortunately by that point in time 4 of us had to log off and we disbanded.

At 10:30 that evening I got another text from Jiz asking me to log in; there were 9 of us online and we would be clearing Naxxramas. I logged in and we proceeded to demolish the Eye of Eternity before heading to Naxx to kill Kel'thuzad. When he was dead, we moved back into Ulduar.

We killed Ignis on our fourth try. It took just over 6 minutes. It was 12:30 in the morning (2:30 am for poor Azmuth!) and we were all tired... but still high from a fresh boss kill.

We gave Iron Council a few tries before calling it a night.

Killing Ignis was the perfect way to cap our weekend of raiding. Most of us played too much WoW this past weekend - we'll get over it, I'm sure, but there's no way I want to make this level of time investment a regular thing. We raided for maybe 14 hours this past weekend. That's not healthy.

But it felt so good.

As Bladewisp (formerly Silverwisp) put it, "After the Ignis kill, I feel like a rock star."

We go after Hodir next weekend.

First PUG on Nagrand, My Healadin Spell Rotation

I ran my first PUG on Nagrand last night, an Obsidian Sanctum-25 run with a Guild named Viable. While it wasn't anything special - four wipes attempting Sarth+1, then a plain Sarth attempt - I was flabbergasted at my healing performance.

We had 5 healers for the run - a Resto Druid, Resto Shaman, and three Holy Paladins. The Druid topped the healing meters, as expected, followed closely by the Shammy (damn Chain Heal!). Then came the three Holy Pallies.

Of 5 healers, I came in fourth. And I had slightly better gear than the other two Paladins.

My ego bruised, I checked Recount to figure out exactly what had gone wrong. And there it was - the top Pally had been spamming Holy Light on the tank with no Beacon of Light. The bottom Pally had been spamming Flash of Light on the offtank.

And me? Holy Shock + Flash of Light on raid members, Beacon of Light on the main tank.

I had to stop and think about what led me to this style of healing and my healing spell rotation.

In a typical boss fight, I set up like this:

Tank throws up readycheck. I cast Beacon of Light. When readycheck is done, I throw a Sacred Shield on the tank. He charges in.

Once he takes a hit, I cast Holy Shock and follow it up with a Flash of Light (two if the first was an instant cast). At this point the tank should be getting heals from multiple sources, so I can take a break from healing and throw a Judgment on the boss (Wisdom if Jiz is in the raid, Light if not). I follow up with another Holy Shock and my first Holy Light of the raid.

It's a mana-efficient spell rotation that allows me to get important buffs (Judgements of the Pure and Light's Grace) while keeping the tank alive. Holy Light is a great spell, especially when glyphed, but it's a mana hog. I know we're in trouble if I'm doing nothing but spamming Holy Light.

After the PUG, in the comfort of a 5-man Bank of NiHao group, I opined that the reason I heal like this is that the folks I raid with seem to take less damage in the course of a fight. I mean, sure, they'll eat the occasional Flame Wall or run off Kologarn's ledge, but we're quite good at yelling at each other over Vent to get out of void zones.

I gave the lead Pally's style a try after I figured out what was going on. Instead of throwing out Holy Shocks and Flashes of Light, I just stood and chucked Holy Lights at the offtank. Sure enough, my healing performance on Recount started to improve. That growing pink bar lifted my spirits immensely. I was healing like a champion.

I ran out of mana two minutes into the fight.

A Sign of Things To Come

Well, I've made the move to Nagrand... actually four of us have. We're currently voting on the new Guild name via email. Bank of NiHao was fun, but we have an opportunity to improve on it along with a new lease on raiding.

Moving from a US server to an Oceanic server had one noticeable effect - it moved daily quest reset time from 3 pm local to God knows when. So I found myself with not a whole lot to do after 3 pm... and when I find myself with time to spare, I farm myself a Firefly.

It's a little known fact that I collect vanity pets. Avierra does, at least. Froufrou has exactly one pet Avi doesn't - the Phoenix Hatchling that drops from Heroic Magister's Terrace - but besides that, Avierra has 54. Yes, counting Stinker.

Yesterday made it 55.



10 hours of off and on farming. I'm still flying.

A Farewell to Bloodhoof

As I write this, the Bank of Nihao is packing everything up in preparation for a server move - off Bloodhoof and onto Nagrand, an Oceanic server. We've been discussing the move for more than a month now, and in light of our small raider base and our need to grow as we move deeper and deeper into Ulduar, it's a move that makes sense.

We're not leaving Bloodhoof without regrets. We're leaving behind friends we've known for a long time - friends with whom we've formed relationships with over vent and Guild/party/raid chat. We're leaving two of our raiders behind as well - which hurts our numbers even more than I care to think about, but that's the way it has to be, I guess.

Our last Bloodhoof raids this past weekend were glorious. We downed Flame Leviathan with one tower up, Razorscale, XT-002 Deconstructor, Kologarn, and Auriaya before clearing out Naxxramas and the Eye of Eternity. A few months ago, if you'd told me we would be at this level of progression, I would have laughed in your face. We've struggled so much with so many issues that it's a wonder we've achieved as much as we have.



We're moving off Bloodhoof because we're running out of raiders. In the past couple of weeks, we've lost a Retribution Paladin and a Balance Druid. For us to maintain our momentum, we need to recruit. Constantly borrowing raiders from GoV just isn't feasible any more. A server transfer to a GMT+8-friendly environment seemed the best option for us to continue raiding.

Nagrand is the unofficial GMT+8 server. When the first generation of ASTIG raiders moved on, a large group moved to Nagrand. (The current ASTIG raids on Thaurissan.) By my count, there are four large Asian-time Guilds making their way through Ulduar on Nagrand. That means that we won't have to wake up early on weekends to PUG Naxx-25; we'll have the opportunity to PUG on weeknights instead. It also means that recruitment will be easier for us, or at least we hope it will be easier.



Oh, but I will miss Bloodhoof.

Bloodhoof is where I moved after ASTIG went stale... after ASTIG gave up on endgame raiding. It's where I first stepped into SSC and TK and Hyjal. (I haven't tried raiding Black Temple or Sunwell yet, although I still hope to someday.) It's where Froufrou learned to raid.

Bloodhoof is where our little band of brothers first put together the thought of raiding together. When we first started playing together, we were officemates first and Guildies second. Now, we're Guildies first and (ex-)officemates second, bound by beer, Ventrilo and shiny purple pixels.

And now we're leaving Bloodhoof.



I am sorely tempted to close this blog now. I've lost a lot of the angst that drove me to start blogging in the first place, and when I need a quick fix I can just hop on Twitter and let the world know I'm annoyed at something.

If anything, though, this blog is about remembering things as they were when they were fresh. Reading old posts brings me back, sort of like reading an old diary. (My God, was I ever that naive?)

So here's what I can promise: I'll think about keeping this blog up. I really will. I don't want to commit and not follow through, but I also don't want to lose this blog entirely.

So farewell, Bloodhoof, and hello Nagrand: I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Healer QQ

Does everything in Ulduar have to hit like Godzilla on steroids? I think I've killed Malago thrice while Holy Light was casting.

/readycheck done

Malago runs in.

He takes 30% damage - Holy Shock! brings him up to 90% health.

He takes 35% damage - Insta-Flash of Light! brings him back up to 70% health.

Start casting Holy Light... he takes two hits and dies.

Me (on vent): Wipe it, guys.

This is, of course, assuming Mal doesn't run into Kologarn's pants like he did last weekend.

Ferarro

Okay, it's time for me to put my 2 coppers in regarding the whole Ferarro mess.

I don't play a Retribution Paladin. I love my main character - who is, in fact, a Paladin - but Retribution is not my playstyle.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate good Ret Pallies. I recognize that other people make fantastic Ret Pallies. I play with a Ret Pally named Rizal who blows me away with his mad DPS skillz. I think Ret Pallies are a very welcome addition to the family of viable raid specs.

I learned a lot of things about Retribution Paladins from Ferarro's blog. I came there to be educated and entertained. For that I will always be grateful to whoever was behind the blog.

Regardless of what Jong says, the content was solid, and it remains a great resource for Paladins of all stripes.

But.

The Lost snippets, the photos, the non-WoW blog posts, they were what made me connect to the author of the blog. Did it help that she was an attractive blonde? Hell yes. But give me some credit; I don't follow bloggers at random based on their looks.

To find out that the photos were stolen from another blogger was a slap in the face.

To find out that other content was taken and repurposed was a stab in the heart.

These are things you do not do.

Like the rest of the community who visited Ferarro's blog, I was deeply disappointed in how the whole mess was handled by the nameless person at the keyboard. There were so many ways that it could have been handled better. Ways that did not involve the ongoing theft of another blogger's content to maintain a five-year-old deception.

I wonder how much the image of the WoW blogger has been tainted by this whole scandal. Speaking as a very insignificant member of this slice of the blogosphere, I can say that it just became a bit harder to hold my head up high.

So here's what I propose: let's call it even.

Nameless blogger, if you want to go out and set up your own Ret-Pally blog, that's fine. My best wishes to you. I may even drop by for a visit. If there's something there I connect with, I may even leave a comment.

In exchange, shut down Ferarro's blog. Right now. The guides can be hosted on Retpaladin.com if there's a clamor for them to stay up. But get rid of that blog; it's tainted.

And for Christ's sake, please leave Sarah Townsend alone.

I'm Still Alive

So there's a pally on my server named Healismyjob. I see him all the time on LFG: "Prot/ret pally LFG".

Seriously.

It's been a month since I last posted; stuff's happened, and I'll be back soon once I sort things out.

Megan and Ferraro broke my heart, you see. You don't get up and walk away from that kind of pain.