Cutting back again

After running around for Lunar Festival and then almost immediately having to run around again for Love Is In The Air world events I've hit a mini-burnout.

Just look at my first sentence, I said I was having to do this. I wasn't forced to do any of it, but I felt compelled because if I didn't do it this year I'd have to wait a full year to do it again (gasp)!

Tycho of Penny Arcade described grouping/raiding as "regimented, codified, other-directed "leisure" and "precisely why I got out the first Goddamned time."

Achievements and the world events have begun to feel that way for me.

I've laughed with the guild about how achievements have only exacerbated the completist, addictive tendencies most mmorpg players have. But it should be an uncomfortable laughter. Like the friend whose weekend drink binges that make him so fun to be around have seeped into the week day.

As I sat for hours camping an achievement the other day, I realized I had crossed that line. I should have uninstalled the game then, instead I've compromised and vowed to cut back yet again. Like someone from AA I'm going to take it one week at a time.

I'll let you know how it works out.

World Events Achievements

I haven't had a chance to try, but according to the General Forums it is really hard to get the Be Mine! achievement to complete the Fool For Love achievement.

The Bag of Candies has an extremely low drop rate.

But the reason why I'm blogging about this is the amount of exasperation people are having about it. There's already thread capped out and another one has started.

Players have mentioned they have alarms set to remind them to log on every hour, and (I assume jokingly) have been losing sleep over it literally.

One person even went on to say they wish there was no such thing as world events. Before achievements you never would get such an outcry over the same activities.

The adage "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" doesn't seem to apply here.

The opposite of attunement

One thing I've noticed on my realm are the number of guilds that are moving from 10-man to 25.

Raiding is inarguably more accessible now a big swing from BC attunements that required 5-man milestones that many groups couldn't (or didn't bother to) reach.

Now the type of player who claim they only want to do instances with their 10 friends, are starting to branch out and up.

Guild #29,358 downing the 4 Horseman isn't going to make its rounds on wow blogs and websites but I don't hear wow losing any numbers.

10 vs 25 man loot

I've noticed this twice on the forums, in General and in Raids & Dungeons. A request that 10-man loot be equivalent to 25-man loot.

First you have to go on the premise 10-mans are as difficult as 25-man dungeons. I cannot speak from personal experience, but from what I've read 10-man Sartharion + 3 drakes is harder that its 25-man counterpart. One encounter isn't enough to support giving a 10-man boss the same loot table as a 25.

Just as Blizzard decided to decrease from 40 to 25. The argument is more people cause more complexity. And this I agree. How often have you beat an encounter because of less people than more. It happens. The oft quoted "herding more cats" is mentioned when discussing why larger raids are harder. It's quoted because it's true.

Also don't forget, if there is a instance tuned for 5 or 10 you start to have to make it workable for a variety of specs. You end up having to water it down so Joe 'n Friends can down it with whatever class mix they decide to have. If they tuned it tightly to make it rough going, many of these close knit group of friends simply would not have the necessary elements needed.

What I found most interesting is a few people saying they should just get rid of 25-mans altogether. But they didn't really give a reason why. To me it sounds like some players want their 10-man achievement to be the pinnacle of the game. Which makes them no better than the elitists they despise.

What happened to smaller groups just want to see content?

It quickly goes back to why do you need 25-man loot if you are only willing and/or able to tackle 10-man instances? I remember when I had decided to take things more casual I knew I wouldn't be able to have access to the best loot anymore. It seemed fair to me.

Choosing which achievements to chase

To quote Michael Corleone "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."

Attempting to "complete" all the achievements sure feels that way.

I'll never be Beelsebub the gnome warlock, who at last count, has 7,630 achievement points.

But I also realize I already may be above average myself - nearing 5,000. For example, let me use the example of a guildie who has expressed no interest in acquiring achievements points beyond what we get through raiding, etc. I must preface that he's a Death Knight. He hasn't even hit 2,000.

It's similar to "anyone who plays more than you plays to much and anyone who plays less, plays too little." How far you want to take achievements is up to you, but I think most would agree passing the 6k mark as hardcore achiever.

I have a feeling getting that far will require me to play beyond my comfort level. That leads me to choose which achievements I should bother with. For example Baron's mount is one of those achievements that could potentially take a lot of time. Yet I want the mount. I could get a ton of other achievements done in that same amount of time. Yet...it's the Baron mount!

Yeah the choices may be harder than I thought!

Wild Growth 6 second cool down

I've only raided once since the Wild Growth nerf. What I discovered is while I don't use Wild Growth much, I did use it more than I realized. In other words I found myself reaching for it when the cool down wasn't up more times than I expected.

I consider myself lucky. In druid years, I haven't been resto very long. So healing spells changing doesn't really effect me as much as someone who may have relied on it for months.

Rejuvenation

The blog title not only reflects my current role as a resto druid, but also what I feel my blog needs.

I feel like I've been blogging and playing wow almost begrudgingly. As if I'm forced to do so and as if unhappy doing so.

I like to blog and I like to play wow. I can only imagine I have some deep-seated depression going on. But if it is indeed the case I'd rather it not permeate into 2 of the things I supposedly enjoy. That I feel the need to say this at all leads toward something I'd rather not dwell upon.

I'm going to try to spruce up my blog a bit. I look at Resto4Life and Tree Bark Jacket for inspiration. My next post(s) will be attempts to be cheerier. I'm sure my cynicism will leak through, but my hope is that it will lead to a better reading experience for anyone who still reads this.

What type of healer are you?

I came across this post over at Matticus' fine healer blog.

Based on the signs I could fall under 4 of the 5 archetypes in my healing career.

I think in the beginning I could identify with Hero Complex. I'm not sure what came first for me the Reluctant Healer or the Ex-Healer. And now I think I most closely identify with the Average Gamer. I've never had the God Complex and this is written with such extremes I doubt many players have. Healers may be rare but they aren't that rare where other players would put up with this type of behavior.

Do the quests!!!!

Wrath brought us some interesting quest chains this time around.

If you really hate questing then ignore this. But I don't want to hear a single person say there is nothing to do if they haven't even bothered to, at least, do a majority of the Northrend quests. And no, majority does not mean just enough to get you to 80.

The world changes as you complete these chains and there are things you miss by not doing them.

I won't tell you what they are because that would defeat the purpose of saying "Do the quests!!!!"

Now you know what I've been up to.

Holding raid slots

Due to RL a friend of mine decided to cut back from raiding for a while. He was only gone for perhaps a month or so. But when he came back and wanted to raid full time, he was sat on the bench. He understood that as a price to pay. He had to earn his raid slot back.

However unless you're really good you don't usually leave a spot open for someone to leave for that length of time and come back to. So his raid slot had been filled.

The next alternative was raid swapping. And this is what both the guild and he felt was fair. After sitting on the bench for a while, always willing to fill in as needed (and it was needed) he hoped to start getting to get in the game and let someone else warm the bench.

Unfortunately, although the raid leader said this was what would happen it never did. The raid leader consistently sat my friend on the bench even though he performed exceptionally well each time he got to raid.

In the end my friend switched guilds and is much happier as a result. Looking back we can only imagine the raid leader had an axe to grind but wasn't willing to share his reasons. What's worse than a over the top aggressive raid leader? A wishy-washy passive one.

I happened to follow me friend to this new guild and since I've been there someone left and they said "your slot will be waiting for you when you return". It is indeed a warm sentiment to share when someone leaves raiding unwillingly (due to RL, money, etc.) and I'm sure a nice one to receive.

Our raid roster at the moment is just right for most content (we can do some of it undermanned), but with us on the slim side for the harder content (where every person counts).

If the player comes back now, he'd be very welcome on our harder instances, but there is a chance someone would have to sit out on the other ones to fit him in.

And I have to ask is this fair to the person that filled in for him while he was MIA?

How do you tell the paladin you're recruiting "Hey we really need you right now, but there will come a time when Joe the Player comes back and you'll be relegated to the bench"?

So I can see it from my friend's side as well as a little from my former guild's side. I wouldn't tell a player their slot is safe. It isn't fair to the other 24 players who want to raid, especially if they can't at least give you an estimate on when they think they'll return. I wouldn't tell a player they aren't able to earn a position back on the roster either, especially if they have been a consistent raider in the past. If I felt there was no place for them, I hope I'd have the guts to tell them so, especially if I care an iota about them.

For the good of the guild

Quite often you read a blog and get ideas for what you want to talk about on your own. This happened with Tobold's blog which lead me to Matticus' blog which lead me to the Greedy Goblin's blog and back here.

Apparently Matticus is a guild leader faced with a raid member who decides he wants to take a break until Ulduar (the next raid after Naxxramas) because he has all the gear he needs and doesn't want to burn out.

I can side with both Matticus and the paladin to some extent.

In the guild I joined with the release of Wrath, I've seen players with different levels of progress:

1) The over-achiever who leveled the fastest, raided the earliest and has gear for various specs already. Has more gear than what he knows to do with.
2) The average-guy (for our guild) who leveled pretty fast, raids a lot but may or may not be lucky with drops. Has pretty much what he needs now. <----I'm here
3) The lucky-guy who didn't level fast, raids just enough, but got lucky with drops. Has pretty much what he needs now. Lucky bastard.
4) The bringing-in-the-rear guy who didn't level fast, doesn't raid much. Doesn't have what he needs, but may get lucky gearing up fast because the rest of us have pretty much what we need.
5) The alts. These are the #1 and #2's characters. Who either have everything or pretty much what they need and want to gear up their alts.

I am in the camp that I am willing to continue raiding for my guild on my main ONLY if they are gearing up their main characters. I have no desire to keep going to instances just because they want to put their 2nd and 3rd character in epics.

This, for me, leads to burnout very quickly because
1) I'm not getting anything out of it, except the chance to be nice
2) Being nice is often misused and abused
3) Runs go unbearably slow with too many alts

For the good of the guild, I will keep raiding and finding reason to raid for the core of the raid group. Because I hope they will do the same for me.

When I see more and more alts coming to raids, I'll either politely bow out or bring my own alt!

Queue Queue

I've heard some queues are upwards of 1.4k My server isn't that bad, but it has been averaging 45 minutes.

Also if you are lucky to get in, sometimes you are met with "cannot start additional instances at this time" when trying to zone into an instance.

And then there's the lag felt 'round the world when the battle of wintergrasp is at the door to the keep.

I bet other games would kill to have these kind of problems.

New Year's Resolutions

For me this time last year I had 2 simple resolutions
1) Play WOW less
2) Enjoy WOW more

Overall I think I played WoW less than I had the previous years, even canceling the game for a short while.

I enjoyed my new character more than my old one, even going so far to retire what I felt would always be my main.

However I can't say with honesty I kept my resolutions. This leads me to set the same resolutions this year. Maybe I can do better this time around.

As mentioned in my previous post I've been rebelling against the idea of playing alts. My theory is if I'm that bored with my main character I should just log off the game instead of hopping on an alt and attempting to finish another endless list of things.

I've been tempting to start new alts already, but with my resolution in mind I'm staving off temptation. It has actually been working a little I happily admit. I've logged off several times recently simply because I've grown bored of what I'm doing on my main. Not having another alt to sink my time into helps make logging off easier.

I want to look back next year being successful keeping my resolutions this time. That will be the best achievement of all.

The Alt Expansion?

A while back, in an attempt to lessen my play time, I decided to focus on playing one character instead of spreading it out among alts. This dovetailed nicely with the introduction of achievements. More time on one character, more opportunity to complete achievements on it.

But with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion I've noticed a curious thing. With its ease of leveling, ease of regular instances, ease of heroics and current ease of raiding even the more casual player can finish end game within a few months of its release.

The curious thing is how many players, at least in my guild, have essentially shelved their main characters to play alts. In the past it would at least take several months before you even found things have eased up enough (getting your professions maxed, getting your gear crafted, getting attunements) to have "free" time to start playing alts.

"But there is a lot of end game left!" you say. Finishing all heroic achievements and killing Sartharion with 3 drakes up is something to strive for, but doesn't take up all your play time unless your guild is focusing on it.

So while lucky to start running heroics with my guild again, it is mostly with their alts. Still better than pugs but usually with an under geared character hoping to get a bunch of drops. As a result the achievements I want to get are on the backburner because you have a better chance of accomplishing them with main, well-geared, well-played character.

Unless I myself decide to start playing alts again, I'm just spinning my wheels as far as the group achievements go. I could spend time on the solo achievements but I specced to primarily group and at the moment is what I'm enjoying believe it or not.

I remember reading in Everquest you grouped because you had to. And part of World of Warcraft's revelation and revolution was you could solo and progress. With this expansion your ability to solo is coming much, much faster. Great for those who like to solo. Not so great for those of us who want the multiple player experience.

Happy Feast of Winter Veil!!!

I'm just about finished with all of the Winter Veil achievements. The ones I have left depend on randomness and time. I need mistletoe from revelers, which there is a chance you'll get holly or snowflakes from them instead. I need a crashin' thrashin' robot, which I think you can't get until tomorrow. And I need to open a present, which of course you can't get until tomorrow!

Happy Holidays!

Dual specs

Whether what I've been hearing is true or not, the dual spec feature sounds like it will be the answer to many prayers.

Disclaimer: the following is either rumor, hearsay, or even when quoted from blue "subject to change".

Dual spec feature is supposed to allow you to have 2 specs that you can switch in and out. There is a cost involved with setting up the specs at first. But after that you should be able to switch in major cities.

I've even heard you'll be able to switch them in instances for a minor cost. Not sure how that will work. A talent trainer at the summoning stones?

What's also good news is they are taking it a step further, so when you swap your spec

"It will swap your talents, glyphs and the position of buttons on your action bars.

Note you actually have to buy the glyphs for both specs first."

Being able to switch into a dps spec will allow me to enjoy the game when I'm not healing. At this point I spend time doing things that don't involve killing anything.

A few more heroics - this time with guild

Since I normally pug heroics, I try not to do them on weeknights. The time it takes to find one and get it going and get it finished seems to eat a whole evening up. And the chance for frustration is high.

However, last night I broke my no-heroics-during-the-week rule because some of my guild wanted to run some. Not only did I get one cleared, we did three. Instead of ending the evening grumbling about a waste of time, I came away with some more achievements under my belt and more badges saved.

The nice thing about guild runs is not only are you getting gear, you're actually improving your gear for the 10 and 25 man dungeons. Instead of some random person getting an upgrade and you never seeing them again, your fellow guild member will show up next time a few stats better. So, if one person in your heroic gets gear, even if its not you, its essentially better for you as well.

It really builds a strong case against pugs and that's a shame.

Healer Mechanics

There was a nice thread in the newish Healing forums about Healing Mechanics. I was going to only paste a snippet but the post bears listing in full (with my comments in bold):

Can we have a discussion about healing mechanics? No QQ, no 3.0.8 distress, just a raw mechanics discussion. I'm not talking about class balance here, just the raw mechanics of what does and does not work as a healing implementation. Let me give you a few examples of things I think are overall issues with healing mechanics.

Healer Competition:
While most of PvE is cooperative, raid healing is stupidly competetive with poor support mechanics for multiple healers healing the same damage. It also creates an environment where faster spells are artificially more valued because it means your heal actually works. To overcome this with communication and mods takes an unproportional amount of effort. Playing two different healers in two different "ages" I can say this is unfortunately true. In the end everyone says they don't care how you heal someone as long as enough players stay alive to beat the encounter. So my attempts to keep healing fun by trying out different heals, usually ends up with me finding the best, most efficient heal to spam. No matter how many times we say healing meters don't matter or how skewed they can be (how do you get a dot heal off when a circle of healing will overwrite it; what do paladins do in the age of aoe damage, etc) someone will always look at the meter and assume the top person is the best. It will be interesting to see how things pan out with the circle of healing, wild growth nerf.

Healer Reduction:
Start 25-mans with 7 healers (or even 8 in some cases). Drop down to 4 healers as content becomes farmed. Start new content - need 7 healers again. This seems to be the place where hybrids can shine, when you need healers use your dps paladins, shaman, druids and priests. I don't think this is much of an issue. But if you like healing, having to dps would be a pain (yeah you won't read that anywhere else).

Bored Healers:
1 healer can pull over a million in healing on the right fight. Fights like Noth might have 200k in healing total. You can only heal as much damage as the raid takes. (This definitely leads to burnout, a healer kinda reaches a plateau, while dps always have more to strive for.)

Outstanding!:
Great DPS makes the fight short. Great tanks keep everything locked down. Great healers ... make everyone else think the fight just isn't that hard. Underlying mechanics mean that spectacular healers don't shine anywhere near as well as spectacular dps/tanks. This is why sometimes I like doing 5-mans more than anything, there is no one else doing the healing but me, so your contribution stands out more. Also priests can shine when crap hits the fan, but that usually requires players making multiple stacked mistakes. A situation if you're smart you try not to find yourself in very often (pugs).

Lag Double Dip:
While everyone in the raid has to react to events during encounters, for example Thaddius' polarity shifts. But while other roles have to do this a few times per encounter or as often as once every 30s, healers do this on every single cast. This makes healing more dynamic than other roles in most cases. It also means lag (link latency or server lag) affects healing roles twice as much as DPS/tanks.(Not sure what is being said here, have to review it later.)

UI/Interface Issues:
The base Blizzard UI is terrible for healing. A lot of encounters are easier if you're staring at the boss and see a cast start (for example: Loken) rather than staring at health bars. Having to either get a mod or macro every single ability is dumb.(It is amazing Blizzard has done nothing to improve the raid ui since original launch.)

Dual-Spec:
Healers have a PvE spec, a PvP spec, and a DPS/questing/dailies spec. Dual-spec suggests that healers are only supposed to do 2 out of those 3 things. It should not be unreasonable to allow PvP healers to have a tri-spec option.(I wholeheartedly agree with this but I'm jonesing so much for dual spec I'm trying not to be greedy.)

Healer's Fault:
Stand in a fire? It's the healer's fault. Get crit while tanking and die? It's the healer's fault. Not enough DPS so the healers run out of mana? It's the healer's fault. Trying to do an instance in mediocre gear with no CC? It's the healer's fault. If a mechanic is supposed to be a gauge of skill, there are other ways to handle it than making healing really really hard. Thaddius is a successful solution - a nice exception to the rule. (Sigh, other than dps simply being more fun than healing, I think this has to be the second reason players quit healing. Healers are held accountable for things that aren't really their responsibility. I can only assume progression, hardcore guilds don't put up with the crap that healers are at fault for everything. But in the 11 million player world the majority either assume or expect healers are there to make up for their shortcomings. As you can imagine its not a fun place for healers' to be - especially when you're blamed for it instead of thanked or at the very least (and would be fine with me) just not blamed.)

Loot Distribution:
DPS casters are rolling on every single piece of caster gear. Healers are excluded from anything with +hit on it. The heavier the armor you wear, the more loot you can roll on.(Sometimes games expect players to do the right thing, to share, think of others and be considerate, but as we all know this is farthest from reality. In a short time of grouping again I've been b*tched at for rolling on hit gear although I requested to only be considered if dps didn't want it in the first place. Apparently hit gear should rot if no dps is there to roll on it. Never mind some hit gear have all the other stats a healer could use.)

From Cafooh - Healer Exhaustion:
As a healer, you have to pay 100% attention 100% of the time. Even 5-10 seconds of talking to your roommate or trying to answer a phone call can and will cause wipes and deaths. The ramifications of anything less than 100% of attention are faaaaaaar less severe as a DPSer (or even as a tank, as I am finding with the DK). You are constantly staring at the screen and reacting instantaneously for hours and hours. No other role is even close to as demanding or as straining as healing.(I think this is less prevalent now that 40 mans are gone, but I always like to share how as a priest I felt I couldn't look away for a moment for months of raiding, only to find out later a dpser would go afk for dinner for at least 30 minutes every raid - he had a buddy let him go on auto-follow.)

Leaving issues of class balance aside, if there was one thing you would change with regards to healing mechanics, did I list it? If not, what would it be?

Some of these things I feel as a healer you decide yourself to put up with them. For instance you should know you have to have a good attention span. And deciding to do it for hours and hours is all on you. But some things where a dpser not flipping out that you share their gear, or dpser/tanks realizing what steps they need to take to be more responsible for themselves would be a nice change that wouldn't even take much effort on their part. The ui is all on Blizzard. They've got fine examples, would it screw up too much performance to include them? But in the end if you end up bored or burned out, nothing helps but quitting at least for a while. At least that was the case for me.

The Problem with PUGs

Pugs have a bad rep. But deservedly so.

I leveled fairly quickly. Not very quick compared to my own guild, but in general fairly quickly. 95% by questing, my favorite part of the game. I didn't jump right into instances, because I felt I had 2 years, give or take, to do them.

Boy, did I make a mistake. By the time I felt like running the majority of my guild was not only done with all the regular instances they were done with running them on heroic! They had started doing 10 and 25 man runs which had better.

So I set aside time to do instances on my own. I've spent most of the time in "Looking for Group" which I secretly feel gives you a stigma of "if you were any *good* you could find a group in your own guild". Maybe it's just me.

I feel like I'm a decent player, with decent gear and considerate. If I'm looking for pug groups surely other players like me are looking also. And there were. However, you can have 5 players with a mish-mash of those qualities and it only takes ONE missing one of them and your pug becomes a pain.

Many times I've read posts about pug experiences and although I have a history of my own experiences I still think "No way! They couldn't be *that* bad! Could they?"

Well over the past week, I've come across that ONE in just about every group I've been in.

1) Considerate player, decent gear, not a decent player: One dpser couldn't kill a level one critter. Last boss was dps intensive. We couldn't defeat it.

2) Decent gear, decent player, inconsiderate: More than one tank decided to go afk for an extended period of time.

3) Decent player, considerate, lacking gear: I've seen enough of my share of dpsers below the tank on the damage meters.

I'm used to all of these things, but doing a week of pugs was a bad idea. And I hate it too because I know what it's like to look for a group for something and not be able to find anyone interested. Which leads me to what I believe to be my biggest gripe about pugs.

You, dear player, are looking for a group. Apparently you, yes you, have decided to join LFG. And you, no I didn't stutter, have decided you want to run this instance.

I'm looking your squarely in the eye. Can you please answer this question for me? Why do you join a group and then take 10-15 minutes to get to the instance.

This is my biggest gripe. Because you finally have the group you've been looking for! Yet you decide to keep doing your quest, or finish up your battleground, or go cut a stone for someone, or check the auction house, or generally shoot the breeze until someone summons you.

Maybe in a few days or weeks I'll realize there is something in an instance I want and I won't be able to find anyone in guild to help me and I'll pug again. But for now I'm done with them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to AFK for dinner while I'm NOT in an instance.

Every day is a slow news day for the hardcore

I have to admit I miss the days of reading about what encounters the hardcore guilds have completed. Lately the only thing you'll find is Sartharion with 3 drakes up. From what I've heard there are 10 man achievements that are the pinnacle of raiding at the moment. It seems the hardcore are clamoring for something that makes them stand out.

I mentioned a while back that Blizzard should implement varying degrees of accomplishments, and obviously they've already done that to an extent. No surprise, but they may be onto something here. If you make it challenging they will come. They may as well make it Sartharion with 10 drakes up. There are guilds out there that will attempt to reach it. I guess the problem is running out of rewards to give them.