Monday, December 31, 2007

WTS T6, PST


Invictus has started selling BoP items from SSC/TK/Hyjal/BT now, and it's stirred up the WoW community quite a bit. Most long-time raiders have seen this practice already, and it's nothing new for most. My old raid guild Oh Snap of Moonrunner did Lootapalooza for BWL items, and this is just a reincarnation of something that's been happening for years.

Good luck to all prospective buyers, and good luck to WoWInsider on hiring new writing staff!

RnD Post
WoWInsider Post

Grats Obe on S3 sword!


Merry Christmas Obelinux! Hope the Off-hand isn't too far off!

Rough night after a long holiday raid break, but we did manage a BT clear. The loot we got tonight was exceptional. Tank boots and dagger from Naj'entus, Syphon from Supremus, Melee DPS cape from Teron, Torch of the Damned from Reliquary, and a Zhar'doom and Glaive from Illidan.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Light and How to Swing It.



These shoulders look absolutely amazing. I wasn't a big fan of the Draenei themed Crystalforge set. The book encased in light on the right shoulder and the hammer on the left really embodies what I think a Paladin should be. The shining armor of a Grand Crusader that has divine wisdom and divine retribution at either hand. /rp-off

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Holy Wrath Owns.



Best looking spell graphic in the entire game, and if you don't agree you're an idiot.

Seriously.


When do players really learn to play? At what point does it all click and they realize what function they are supposed to perform in a group dynamic and the etiquette involved? In my off-time, I rolled a hunter on an RPPVP realm just to mess around. In 3 days I'm level 46 and I've spent some significant time in 5 mans. It's been forever since I've run a non-maxlevel 5 man, and it's been really hard to keep my comments about the mind-numbing stuff I see away from party chat. Why do people do what they do? What's so compelling about breaking crowd control and screaming at the healer for heals while aggro'ing packs and packs of extra mobs.

I recently did ZF with a warlock who insisted on having his pet tank things. I'd organized the group with a prot paladin (so I can multi-shot!) and things were going smoothly, until he just all of a sudden decided that he was going to have his Voidwalker tank and if anyone else pulled aggro (including the paladin) he was going to "be forced to fear them into other groups." I brushed it off at first, but the very next pull he sent his VW into a pack, aggro'd them, and then into the adjacent pack on accident. The paladin started to get aggro to save the eventual wipe, and he got angry and left the group because we didn't listen to him. Dumbstruck, the group collapsed and everyone hearthed disappointed. Granted this was an unusual situation but the question remains, at what point to people figure out what the fuck their class does in group and can manage to do it without pissing the entire group off in the process. I suppose some never learn, and that's why Blizzard created Battlegrounds.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Why Reskinning T6 for PVP Bothers So Many.



Gear serves two purposes in this game. It makes your character more powerful, and it's a status symbol. When you see someone with nice gear, you can assume that they know how to play their class well with others, and that they'll generally be knowledgeable about the game they play. Gear says a lot about your character, and it's what separates you from those who haven't put the time in. Everyone learns when they level that the rarity of an item and the difficulty required to attain it almost always dictates the uniqueness of it's appearance and the impressive stats it provides your character.

So why dilute the rarity of high-end epic items such as Tier 6 by adding a bunch of easy to obtain items that look identical. The difficulty in earning T6 helm is an order of magnitude more difficult than grinding 1850 arena points and buying a look-alike. So then when you see this player with it, you have no idea without inspecting them up close as to their skill level and game experience. Reskinning gear strips players of the status symbol that comes with attaining high level gear, and dilutes the elite feeling of having nice gear that you worked hard for. PVP gear should have unique and interesting model skins like they did preBC. If I saw a Grand Marshal sword before the honor change, that meant something. Now it's bland and just part of the scenery, just like all the Season 3/T6 will be.

All the gear that raiders work so hard for, spending hours coordinating, raiding, and farming consumables and gold to pay for is rendered not only non-unique, but often times obsolete. Nobody likes their in-game achievements lessened by opening it up to anyone with an hour a day and 4 random people in their arena team.

The Holidays, RIP Raiding.


Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the happiest days of the week for me, as those are pretty much the only days we raid. No matter what happens on Monday (Azgalor wipes...rawr) we'll always take Illidan down on Tuesday. I think we 1 shotted him this week, and for a fight with so many variables, that's always encouraging. I managed to score Lightbringer Chestguard from him and Girdle of Stability from Gurtogg, therefore leaving me with 3 upgrades left in the game. The boots from Naj'entus, the T6 Shoulders and of course, to the chagrin of all mages and warlocks, the Tempest of Chaos. Without fail, a few days before Tuesday I'll get a whisper from one or two of them who are due to take the sword, asking me to pretty please pass it to them. *sigh*..one of these days..

Monday, December 3, 2007

Kill the OH GOD MACE STUN!


Decided to give arenas a whirl after seeing all the people in greens with T6 looking helms. The paladin protection spec is easily the least arena viable of them all, so I dumped my talent points and did the unthinkable..specced Holy. Now without going into too much detail, let's just say that my heal gear is somewhat..lackluster. It's not bad stuff per se, but it's a lot of mail and one piece of leather from Hyjal and BT, so I look pretty much fucking ridiculous in it. How to counter this? Bulwark of Azzinoth. There's no armor in this game that doesn't look good with this shield, and it serves a dual purpose. They see that shield and people leave me alone, which is great because I weigh in at a powerful 0 resilience.

My teammates Obelinux and Neloran have significantly better PVP gear than I do, but they seem willing to drag me along while they blow people apart and I press my heal buttons.

Update! Tried a new setup, with Neloran, Avere (resto druid) and myself. Linking to her description with illustration!