So besides the stealth nerf to mages in patch 4.0.3, we also had another change come into being for a "known bug" that made a lot of Frost Mages pretty excited after patch 4.0.1. Yesterday I log into my mage and go about doing my dailies and killing elementals to run the special invasion bosses, and I notice my water elemental's name is gone and has reverted to "Water Elemental" again. Immediately, I looked up the command for the rename and I get an error that tells me I cannot rename my pet. I'm distraught.
So immediately I scour the patch notes for any comment and see nothing. I try right clicking. I ask my mage friends, who are just as stunned and disappointed as I am. I even went so far as to put in a ticket and petition to a GM to find out what was going on. Due to a high volume of petitions, I didn't get my answer till today and I was told that the ability to name your water elemental in 4.0.1 was a "known bug" and was fixed in the patch this Tuesday.
I can tell you I'm more disappointed than angry. Naming your water elemental gives you a little spark of uniqueness in a world where that is rare. The number of Frost Mages that popped up after the changes was astounding and I'd like to think that each one put forth a good bit of effort and thought to name their pet, since you were unable to change it once it was done. I won't say that I thought for hours about the name I chose, but it was special and unique to me and my water elemental had a little bit more personality because of it.
I think what bothers me the most is why Blizzard went out of their way to fix this, when there are a number of other bugs that need addressing. I'm not complaining that we got a little nerf (all our spec bonuses are down from the 25% they were before to 10% for fire and 15% for Frost and Arcane). After the patch hit, we needed it frankly. Mages shot up into the realm of ridiculous DPS, taking over the charts and leaving a lot of other classes in the dust. But this just seems so unnecessary. Does it really take up that much data room for a water elemental to have a unique name assigned to it? It seems to me that any other pet class with a permapet has a pet with a name instead of a generic identifier. Though warlocks and Unholy DKs don't get to pick the name directly, there's still a little unique flavor there. And if it's such a bad thing to have to juggle, why do hunters get to name 20 unique pets?
Sure when our water elementals were not permapets, it made sense not to let us name them. I get that. It was a temporary summoned creature. But now we get one from level 1 all the way up to cap. So why not just let us name it? Those of us who RP get a chance to tell a story with the name, something that's indicative to the elemental's personality. We bond with it after 85 levels, so why wouldn't it have a unique moniker?
Rather than whining, bitching, and yelling, I'm asking, Blizzard. Please give us our Water Elemental names back. To my readers, consider this an open letter to Blizzard, a petition for a little twist of individuality in a sometimes dull world. If you agree with what I've written here, please follow up with a comment and a /signed. Feel free to put your character name and server if you like. Even if this gets us nowhere, we can at least say we tried.
Showing posts with label Bitching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bitching. Show all posts
So, the patch released Tuesday, as everyone expected and mages have already rejoiced and been nerfed because Blizzard tweeked us a teeny bit too high in DPS. The day the patch hit, my guild was running randoms to try out their new specs and we came across an arcane mage doing 14k sustained DPS in Violet Hold, without running cooldowns constantly. That was a bit insane since hunters are now struggling to reach the 5 and 6k mark with their nerfs, though I'm still sure they'll get a buff, like the whiny ret paladins and DKs.
However, upon opening up my talent trees and playing with specs, glyphs and reforging, I've found some of the information given pre-patch was not accurate. So here's where I correct all that.
We'll start with reforging since that's my latest post. I love reforging. It's so fun to get rid of useless stuff on my gear and make it something cool. The good news is that I was wrong about spirit - if you pick up a piece with spirit on it, you can reforge it to something more useful, like hit or haste or mastery. However, that doesn't mean you should be scooping up healer gear with spirit right and left. That's a good way to put yourself on the shit-list. If you do have some gear with spirit already, then you can take 40% of it off and put it somewhere nicer. The problem I'm finding is that with hit being capped at good'ole 17% with no talents to reduce, there's not much to reforge. You can take some crit off your gear, but I wouldn't recommend removing it all in place of mastery. Right now mastery isn't as significant as it will be in cataclysm, and I wouldn't be very surprised if it was broken. I actually reforged all my crit into hit and mastery to test how good it was and had a drop in DPS because I wasn't ever getting the big numbers. Now this will likely be different in a raid setting where you have a number of buffs to help you out and they're significantly more widespread than before, so you don't need as many classes to get what you want. My recommendation would be to play around with your numbers a bit, so long as you have the cash.
Now glyphs are a tougher subject. Some of the glyphs labeled as prime, major, or minor didn't end up as those for release:
Now since the patch has hit, I've focused on two of the 3 specs. Fire is my next endeavor, but I have to say, I really love Frost and Arcane is so powerful, it's going to be hard to spec out of it. The thing to remember with frost is that since it's based off procs now, there's a priority system, rather than an actual rotation. You get a free perma-elemental (Blizzard needs to let us name them!) and since the glyph went byebye, we get to keep Freeze. On top of that, there's a talent that gives you Fingers of Frost procs when you use said spell. Fingers of Frost is one of the two procs you should be watching for when you're casting. I usually start a boss fight off by dropping my mirrors, blowing Icy Veins, and having my elemental freeze the target, giving me two procs to start out with. Immediately after you want to hit your Deep Freeze for some nice burst and then your Ice Lance to use the second stack of the proc. When you have no procs up, you're going to be spamming Frostbolt, but keep an eye on the cooldown of your elemental's Freeze and your own Frost Nova and Cone of Cold. (Note that Cone of Cold and Frost Nova will only give you one stack of FoF, but are still useful.) When you have procs up, your priority is thus: Deep Freeze whenever off cooldown and available through procs, Frostfire Bolt when Brain Freeze is up, including if you have a proc of FoF since it gains the benefits, and Ice Lance last for FoF procs. Otherwise, just keep throwing frostbolts at them and keep an eye out for procs.
In Arcane, you're basically down to one button, which is incredibly depressing. The (de)buff from Arcane Blast no longer benefits any spells other than AB itself, so you'll find yourself spamming a single button from now on, save for the occasional missile proc and maybe an Arcane Barrage when you're moving. The big new thing about Arcane is that you have to keep an eye on your mana to maximize your DPS. Besides that there's a bunch of little fun ways to get some extra spell power, requiring a little more utility from the mage. The talent Invocation comes to mind, requiring you to interrupt someone's spell cast to get an extra boost of damage. Set yourself up a /stopcast /cast Counterspell macro for efficient and quick use of Counterspell. Also, belfs like myself get extra benefit from interrupting with Arcane Torrent, and on top of that it gives us a little mana back. Incanter's Absorption is also more interesting with the combined power of Mage Wards covering all 3 trees of damage for mages. It's a little more limited than it was before it was nerfed, but overall, I feel it's an improvement from post-nerf. I never ever use mana shield for IA, because if you're getting hit with Mana Shield up, you're losing mana and losing DPS. This is a personal preference and other mages may feel differently. The last little tidbit for extra power is Improved Mana Gem. I highly recommend taking this talent and working it into your cooldowns. I have it set up so that for boss fights, I stop by dropping Mirrors and blowing Arcane Power, cast a couple ABs then add the extra damage from a mana gem use to my already increased damage. There are a number of talents in the arcane tree that are situational, but fun; my favorite is Improved Blink. (Blinkzooooooooooom!) Aside from the fun stuff, how do you keep your mana up? I use a combination of all the cooldowns I have: Mana Gem, Evocation, Arcane Torrent, and Mana Potions. If you have a druid friend who's not suffering low mana, maybe he'll toss you an innervate. If he/she has the glyph, they get some mana back too. So I suppose the big questions lies where you throw in your arcane missiles. This is a tricky question, indeed. I've found myself using it in heroics to finish off the last bit of a mob. On boss fights, I use it right before I have to pop Evocation since with t10 2 set it gives you a nice haste boost. It's free and costs you no mana, so use it before switching targets or right after you end up on a new target for a little more DPS. It's also useful right after movement that made your AB stacks drop.
At some point in the future I'll pick up Fire and try and give you guys some good solid info on that. Right now the top two specs are Fire and Arcane, as they have been for a while, but Frost really isn't that far behind. The thing I really love about Frost is that it's fun and you can survive through almost anything. I think that's going to become a heck of a lot more important come Cataclysm, and keep in mind anything could change at this point. Happy Maging!
However, upon opening up my talent trees and playing with specs, glyphs and reforging, I've found some of the information given pre-patch was not accurate. So here's where I correct all that.
We'll start with reforging since that's my latest post. I love reforging. It's so fun to get rid of useless stuff on my gear and make it something cool. The good news is that I was wrong about spirit - if you pick up a piece with spirit on it, you can reforge it to something more useful, like hit or haste or mastery. However, that doesn't mean you should be scooping up healer gear with spirit right and left. That's a good way to put yourself on the shit-list. If you do have some gear with spirit already, then you can take 40% of it off and put it somewhere nicer. The problem I'm finding is that with hit being capped at good'ole 17% with no talents to reduce, there's not much to reforge. You can take some crit off your gear, but I wouldn't recommend removing it all in place of mastery. Right now mastery isn't as significant as it will be in cataclysm, and I wouldn't be very surprised if it was broken. I actually reforged all my crit into hit and mastery to test how good it was and had a drop in DPS because I wasn't ever getting the big numbers. Now this will likely be different in a raid setting where you have a number of buffs to help you out and they're significantly more widespread than before, so you don't need as many classes to get what you want. My recommendation would be to play around with your numbers a bit, so long as you have the cash.
Now glyphs are a tougher subject. Some of the glyphs labeled as prime, major, or minor didn't end up as those for release:
- Glyph of Molten Armor, Arcane Missles, Arcane Barrage and Fireball are major, not Prime. This leaves Arcane mages with one good choice, Arcane Blast. Pretty much every spec will be using Mage Armor, except Frost, who could take Cone of Cold instead (along with deep freeze and Ice Lance).
- Glyph of Arcane Power resets GLOBAL cooldown, not cooldown completely, making it not as exciting of a choice as it was before. I'd go so far as to say take Missiles, Barrage, and Molten Armor in Arcane before taking Arcane Power.
- Glyph of Mirror Image is a major glyph not a minor. This tells me that it's not just a cosmetic change and that hopefully your damage buffs in Arcane/Fire will apply, making this a good glyph.
- Glyph of Armors doesn't exist yet in the game. No scribe can make it, so save yourself the time looking for it and put something else in it's place.
- Your meta in ANY spec should still be a Chaotic Skyflare Diamond.
- Instead of the Purified Dreadstones we were using pre patch to fill our 2 blue gem requirement, you want Veiled Dreadstones. Since hit is blue, this helps fill the larger requirement you have to get to 17% without talents so you don't have to reforge something that may be more useful or get more hit from gear. Remember that spirit is now not your friend. Get rid of it asap. We don't even get mana regen benefits from it, and certainly not the crit we were pulling off it before.
- As Spell Power has now been wiped off the face of Azeroth (except on weapons, in enchants, and with gem slot bonuses), your new #1 thing to gem is pure Intellect which comes from Brilliant Cardinal Rubies. All of your Runed Cardinal Rubies were changed over for you in the patch. You can also use Reckless Ametrines (Blizzard switched them over for you too!) in yellow slots for slot bonuses in gear, but Brilliant Cardinal Rubies are still the preferred method of gemming.
Now since the patch has hit, I've focused on two of the 3 specs. Fire is my next endeavor, but I have to say, I really love Frost and Arcane is so powerful, it's going to be hard to spec out of it. The thing to remember with frost is that since it's based off procs now, there's a priority system, rather than an actual rotation. You get a free perma-elemental (Blizzard needs to let us name them!) and since the glyph went byebye, we get to keep Freeze. On top of that, there's a talent that gives you Fingers of Frost procs when you use said spell. Fingers of Frost is one of the two procs you should be watching for when you're casting. I usually start a boss fight off by dropping my mirrors, blowing Icy Veins, and having my elemental freeze the target, giving me two procs to start out with. Immediately after you want to hit your Deep Freeze for some nice burst and then your Ice Lance to use the second stack of the proc. When you have no procs up, you're going to be spamming Frostbolt, but keep an eye on the cooldown of your elemental's Freeze and your own Frost Nova and Cone of Cold. (Note that Cone of Cold and Frost Nova will only give you one stack of FoF, but are still useful.) When you have procs up, your priority is thus: Deep Freeze whenever off cooldown and available through procs, Frostfire Bolt when Brain Freeze is up, including if you have a proc of FoF since it gains the benefits, and Ice Lance last for FoF procs. Otherwise, just keep throwing frostbolts at them and keep an eye out for procs.
In Arcane, you're basically down to one button, which is incredibly depressing. The (de)buff from Arcane Blast no longer benefits any spells other than AB itself, so you'll find yourself spamming a single button from now on, save for the occasional missile proc and maybe an Arcane Barrage when you're moving. The big new thing about Arcane is that you have to keep an eye on your mana to maximize your DPS. Besides that there's a bunch of little fun ways to get some extra spell power, requiring a little more utility from the mage. The talent Invocation comes to mind, requiring you to interrupt someone's spell cast to get an extra boost of damage. Set yourself up a /stopcast /cast Counterspell macro for efficient and quick use of Counterspell. Also, belfs like myself get extra benefit from interrupting with Arcane Torrent, and on top of that it gives us a little mana back. Incanter's Absorption is also more interesting with the combined power of Mage Wards covering all 3 trees of damage for mages. It's a little more limited than it was before it was nerfed, but overall, I feel it's an improvement from post-nerf. I never ever use mana shield for IA, because if you're getting hit with Mana Shield up, you're losing mana and losing DPS. This is a personal preference and other mages may feel differently. The last little tidbit for extra power is Improved Mana Gem. I highly recommend taking this talent and working it into your cooldowns. I have it set up so that for boss fights, I stop by dropping Mirrors and blowing Arcane Power, cast a couple ABs then add the extra damage from a mana gem use to my already increased damage. There are a number of talents in the arcane tree that are situational, but fun; my favorite is Improved Blink. (Blinkzooooooooooom!) Aside from the fun stuff, how do you keep your mana up? I use a combination of all the cooldowns I have: Mana Gem, Evocation, Arcane Torrent, and Mana Potions. If you have a druid friend who's not suffering low mana, maybe he'll toss you an innervate. If he/she has the glyph, they get some mana back too. So I suppose the big questions lies where you throw in your arcane missiles. This is a tricky question, indeed. I've found myself using it in heroics to finish off the last bit of a mob. On boss fights, I use it right before I have to pop Evocation since with t10 2 set it gives you a nice haste boost. It's free and costs you no mana, so use it before switching targets or right after you end up on a new target for a little more DPS. It's also useful right after movement that made your AB stacks drop.
At some point in the future I'll pick up Fire and try and give you guys some good solid info on that. Right now the top two specs are Fire and Arcane, as they have been for a while, but Frost really isn't that far behind. The thing I really love about Frost is that it's fun and you can survive through almost anything. I think that's going to become a heck of a lot more important come Cataclysm, and keep in mind anything could change at this point. Happy Maging!
Ok, so I thought up the title in the shower when I was washing my hair... and belting Madonna. Sue me if you don't like it. Otherwise, sing along with me, ladies.
There have been a number of good Female Gamer 101 posts from other bloggers in the past and a lot of the blogs I read myself are written by other real life girls. While we're a minority still in the gaming community, in WoW, we're holding our own and closing the gap. According to THIS reliable source, 1 in 5 gamers subscribed to WoW are female. 20% isn't a bad number when you consider how many people are subscribed in total to the World of Warcraft and how the percentage must stand in other games. I think one of the big things WoW has going for it in this aspect is how it appeals to a number of different types of people across a broad band of cultures and financial levels. Probably why the devs sit on gold thrones in the Blizzard office building.
With Cataclysm coming out, I expect we'll see an influx of new people interested in the content, especially with furry cute worgen and short wily goblins coming in as the new races. With the grind to 85 having been made more accessible, I suspect more people who aren't power gamers will trickle in along with those who like the end game like myself. A good portion of them will probably be female.
While I know a mix of genders read my blog, as a member of the female persuasion, I feel the need to inform the males on a bit of etiquette related to dealing with the fairer sex in the game. And in all my experience with MMOs dating back to EQ when it was ugly and blocky, I feel that I can summarize the concept in a single rule:
There have been a number of good Female Gamer 101 posts from other bloggers in the past and a lot of the blogs I read myself are written by other real life girls. While we're a minority still in the gaming community, in WoW, we're holding our own and closing the gap. According to THIS reliable source, 1 in 5 gamers subscribed to WoW are female. 20% isn't a bad number when you consider how many people are subscribed in total to the World of Warcraft and how the percentage must stand in other games. I think one of the big things WoW has going for it in this aspect is how it appeals to a number of different types of people across a broad band of cultures and financial levels. Probably why the devs sit on gold thrones in the Blizzard office building.
With Cataclysm coming out, I expect we'll see an influx of new people interested in the content, especially with furry cute worgen and short wily goblins coming in as the new races. With the grind to 85 having been made more accessible, I suspect more people who aren't power gamers will trickle in along with those who like the end game like myself. A good portion of them will probably be female.
While I know a mix of genders read my blog, as a member of the female persuasion, I feel the need to inform the males on a bit of etiquette related to dealing with the fairer sex in the game. And in all my experience with MMOs dating back to EQ when it was ugly and blocky, I feel that I can summarize the concept in a single rule:
FEMALE GAMERS DO NOT WANT TO BE TREATED DIFFERENTLY.
Take a second and read that over again.
Now let it sink in a little bit.
If you're asking yourself, "Why would Gypsy say this?" then I will be happy to explain.
If another man asks me to get off the game and go back to the kitchen, I will use my amazing telekenetic astral projection Jedi powers to reach through the internet and strangle them. Now, take into consideration that the guild my raiding main is in is a lot different than the guild my other characters are in. Two completely different guilds and I can tell you I've had a person in both make a chauvinist comment to me at one point or another. Generally, I just brush it off. The guys in my raiding guild are particularly bad about this as they have the "phrat boy gamer" mentality: it's ok to be drunk or high and calling things fail is hilarious. I admit I've done my fair share of joining in to the teasing and I know they don't mean anything serious by it. Sometimes I find it a little amusing. I try to take the power away from them and make fun of myself first before they can start into it and that usually puts a damper on their humor. Some days it's a bit much though, and I have to stop and tell myself if they didn't respect me as a gamer, I wouldn't be in their guild. There are only 2 other active females in the guild and the pair of them seemed to have risen above it as well; but it is a bit unsettling when one of your non-raiding guildies gets on Vent during a raid and starts making those comments to you when you're trying to concentrate. I know that if I lose it with them while they're doing it, I'll lose a little bit of that respect with them, and that's probably not ok, but that's how it is. So I endure with a chip on my shoulder and things are ok again.
In my other guild, there's actually a large majority of female players and due to the type of guild it is, there are strict rules about conduct in guild chat as well as between guild members. I know that if someone flat out said something completely sexist to me, be it in guild chat or whispers, I could get them in a hell of a lot of trouble, and thankfully no one's crossed that line. But it's the little things. I did some sporadic raids with a group in that guild for a while till I broke down in tears right before a Hallion pull I was off tanking and had to leave the group. It wasn't WoW related at all that made me lose it. It was completely real life stuff and sometimes it hits you right when you're about to stick your axe in the side of a dragon. While the few other females (and one guy in particular) in the group were supportive and told me it was ok over vent, the boys were a bit stunned, I think. Granted, there's only so much you can do to comfort someone over the internet when you had no idea stuff was going on with them and they're blubbering into their mic, I honestly believe I lost some face with them. I haven't been invited back to raid with that bunch since; though that may be related to some personality clashes with a few of the people involved.
The problem in this situation is that I think they suspect it may happen again. I honestly do my best to keep it pro when I'm raiding, but everyone has their breaking point. I've witnessed guys losing it in a raid and although their reaction is usually angry yelling instead of tears, they get invited back. So I have to ask myself, was part of it because I'm a girl? If I'd had something different between my legs, and yelled instead of crying, would it have been treated differently in the aftermath?
Because of the difference in the way I'm treated when a male gamer finds out I'm female (Asshole whispers: Hey r u hawt? pics plz) I walk around with a big chip on my shoulder and the stubborn ambition to prove that I'm just as good as any guy at any role in this game, if not better. And to be honest, the gender doesn't decide your skill in the game at all: I've seen some TERRIBLE male gamers of all ages and discriminations. I've also seen some VERY TALENTED female gamers leaving the boys behind on the DPS charts.
On a last note completely unrelated to WoW, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. This disease has affected a number of people in my family and is a cause very close to my heart. Ladies, take a little time this month to remind yourself how to do a proper breast exam, no matter your age. If you're at the age when Mammograms are required, sit down and try and remember when your last one was; if you're due for another, get on the phone and schedule it. Remind your family, friends, and co-workers to do the same. The key to beating this is prevention and early detection.
And remember, boys, that men can get this too. If you have a strong family history, ask your doctor what you need to do to stay ahead of it and remind your wives, girlfriends, mothers, and sisters to get themselves checked out annually.
The lull before a new expansion brings burnout, harder and faster than most people have ever experienced it. The combination of that and summer often leave holes in your guild's plans to progress. Despite whatever buff Blizzard decides to give us so that everyone has a chance at the Lich King, some people still can't make the stretch. I have two well geared characters and a third that's not far from it. I'm willing and able to fill any role in a raid to a degree, though I clearly have my preferences. I've seen all the content up to and including the Lich King in 10 man and all the way to Sindragosa in 25. I've even got a few heroic kills under my belt. So why don't I have a Kingslayer title?
I assure you it is not because of lack of effort on my part. I've done my best to fill in the gaps where my team and guild needed it. Even if I have alt ADD, I'll still play what the team needs, even if it's not what I want to play. Sometimes I'll ask to play what I like instead, and if I get shot down, I'll suck it up and do what's needed. I have lost my temper a number of times to friends and colleagues about the underhanded bullshit, but I'd like to think I've remained pretty professional on the outward front. I didn't learn to play my classes just from fucking around with buttons. I researched, I spent hours reading blogs and guides, smacking training dummies, picking the brains of my betters. When I did something wrong, I owned up to it and I learned from it. I'd like to think I was rewarded the gear that I have because I did well, not because it was handed to me. Those who have helped me have been helped in return. But where has all this left me?
Miserable. Despising the very thing that is supposed to get my mind off more important real life issues. Finding reasons to stay on the good days, and hating myself for it on the bad ones. Let's discuss some of the issues, shall we?
Being a raid leader is no small task. I've done it before and I almost talked myself into doing it again. However, by some act of God, it didn't happen and I'm better off for it. But that does not mean the people doing it are well suited. Being a raid leader takes a certain amount of effort and pain. There's required organization, sincerity, motivation, leadership, and drive. You have to be willing to help out your members, not because you like them or they're your friends, but because you're part of a team. When you blatantly ignore the requests of one person because this person's your buddy, then you're fucking yourself over. When you don't call bullshit because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, you're fucking yourself over. When you're not willing to bend the rules for the good of your team, you're fucking yourself over. Don't be surprised when things fall apart.
I also understand that people get bored or frustrated with their class and need the new to keep themselves from going nuts. That's perfectly fine. Everyone deserves to have a chance to change. But that doesn't mean you should leave your geared character off to the side and trade it in for an under-geared POS and expect things to be given to you and not to be held responsible for the failings just because "it's fun to try something new lolz." Especially when you were only mediocre at what you did before and you're not even mediocre at what you do now. But since no one's calling you out and you're feelin like getting some mad purpz, you don't feel the need to stop. What's life like as a spoiled princess anyway? What happens when your tower walls start to crumble and everyone gets tired of your bullshit?
People tell me to take a break. I took a break and it didn't help. Then quit your guild or your raid they say. Change is too scary for 9 or 25 other people to contemplate. What happens when there are those few that you don't want to leave behind? I did it before and ended up coming back just for those select few, and I don't regret that. Where do you draw the line between pointless addiction and a game? If I admit I'm doing this to myself, does that make me a masachist? At what point did Hope become so Hopeless?
I assure you it is not because of lack of effort on my part. I've done my best to fill in the gaps where my team and guild needed it. Even if I have alt ADD, I'll still play what the team needs, even if it's not what I want to play. Sometimes I'll ask to play what I like instead, and if I get shot down, I'll suck it up and do what's needed. I have lost my temper a number of times to friends and colleagues about the underhanded bullshit, but I'd like to think I've remained pretty professional on the outward front. I didn't learn to play my classes just from fucking around with buttons. I researched, I spent hours reading blogs and guides, smacking training dummies, picking the brains of my betters. When I did something wrong, I owned up to it and I learned from it. I'd like to think I was rewarded the gear that I have because I did well, not because it was handed to me. Those who have helped me have been helped in return. But where has all this left me?
Miserable. Despising the very thing that is supposed to get my mind off more important real life issues. Finding reasons to stay on the good days, and hating myself for it on the bad ones. Let's discuss some of the issues, shall we?
Being a raid leader is no small task. I've done it before and I almost talked myself into doing it again. However, by some act of God, it didn't happen and I'm better off for it. But that does not mean the people doing it are well suited. Being a raid leader takes a certain amount of effort and pain. There's required organization, sincerity, motivation, leadership, and drive. You have to be willing to help out your members, not because you like them or they're your friends, but because you're part of a team. When you blatantly ignore the requests of one person because this person's your buddy, then you're fucking yourself over. When you don't call bullshit because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, you're fucking yourself over. When you're not willing to bend the rules for the good of your team, you're fucking yourself over. Don't be surprised when things fall apart.
I also understand that people get bored or frustrated with their class and need the new to keep themselves from going nuts. That's perfectly fine. Everyone deserves to have a chance to change. But that doesn't mean you should leave your geared character off to the side and trade it in for an under-geared POS and expect things to be given to you and not to be held responsible for the failings just because "it's fun to try something new lolz." Especially when you were only mediocre at what you did before and you're not even mediocre at what you do now. But since no one's calling you out and you're feelin like getting some mad purpz, you don't feel the need to stop. What's life like as a spoiled princess anyway? What happens when your tower walls start to crumble and everyone gets tired of your bullshit?
People tell me to take a break. I took a break and it didn't help. Then quit your guild or your raid they say. Change is too scary for 9 or 25 other people to contemplate. What happens when there are those few that you don't want to leave behind? I did it before and ended up coming back just for those select few, and I don't regret that. Where do you draw the line between pointless addiction and a game? If I admit I'm doing this to myself, does that make me a masachist? At what point did Hope become so Hopeless?
I realize I'm posting this about 2 weeks after everyone else. I gave myself some time to look into the changes and try to wrap my head around them before I said anything. Even after some time, deliberation, and reading other people's takes, I'm still not thrilled. I'm entirely underwhelmed on the mage front. There's really no part of the announced Cata changes that makes me want to cheer. But, let's start from the beginning anyway.
I know what you're thinking. They're trying to make things more fair for raiders so no one gets special treatment to come along. And now that's more reasons to bring a mage! Well that's all well and good, but here are the potential problems I see. The movement speed thing is nice, but tying it to the Haste spell also ties you to timing. Anybody that raids regularly knows you don't just blow bloodlust when you feel like it. There are specific times when it's used in encounters. That being said, if you need to move out of fire, don't go reaching for Time Warp if you're not already Sated. I suppose this really depends on the cooldown they give us on the spell. If it's shorter than BL/H then it may end up being more useful, but it's still restricted by that timing.
As for the spell itself... my biggest problem with this is that Blizzard didn't even put any thought into giving us a new cool spell. They gave us recycled material in the first two "new spells." UNDER. WHELMED.
That's it for the new Spells. Now on to the next part: mechanic changes.
On to Mastery:
I know this is just a preliminary preview. I realize things can change between now and Cata and I hope they do. I'm really hoping Blizzard has some other tricks up their sleeve to whip out and surprise us in a good way because right now, the mage is not looking so good for Cataclysm.
"Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram's abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it's cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination."From what I've seen in Old Kingdom and ICC Blood wing, these are two pretty different spells. So I'm kind of wondering where the heck they're going with this. In OK, Taldaram tosses out a Flame Orb that splits into several orbs and shoots anyone in range with lasers emanating from both orbs. The described spell is nothing like that. It's the ICC Blood wing one. In ICC, he tosses out one big Orb that targets a single person and splits off little lasers to each person that gets in it's path, diminishing the total power of the big orb when it hits its target. I've never been a fan of fire, but this might be an interesting spell. It really depends on how much power Blizzard puts into the big orb. There was a later blue post that said it was a casted but not channeled spell, which is good because that would completely make it useless.
"Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can't benefit from both if you've got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion."Everyone is so excited about this change, but I'm not. I know people were whining and complaining about only one class having Bloodlust, but don't people know they can do content without it? Sure it's a useful tool, but there are teams out there without it that finish content just fine.
I know what you're thinking. They're trying to make things more fair for raiders so no one gets special treatment to come along. And now that's more reasons to bring a mage! Well that's all well and good, but here are the potential problems I see. The movement speed thing is nice, but tying it to the Haste spell also ties you to timing. Anybody that raids regularly knows you don't just blow bloodlust when you feel like it. There are specific times when it's used in encounters. That being said, if you need to move out of fire, don't go reaching for Time Warp if you're not already Sated. I suppose this really depends on the cooldown they give us on the spell. If it's shorter than BL/H then it may end up being more useful, but it's still restricted by that timing.
As for the spell itself... my biggest problem with this is that Blizzard didn't even put any thought into giving us a new cool spell. They gave us recycled material in the first two "new spells." UNDER. WHELMED.
"Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown."This looks like it might be a nice spell for PVP, but it's completely useless in PVE unless you're afraid of adds in a dungeon. That's a hell of a lot of aggro to absorb from a pack though. I was hoping for something a little more frosty for a Frost Tree spell. I know they said they were changing the focus back to BGs in Cata instead of arena, but I have fleeting interest in them at best... so again, not excited.
That's it for the new Spells. Now on to the next part: mechanic changes.
"Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior's Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels."Last I checked, AM was pretty much already a proc-based spell if you're playing Arcane with any efficiency. You only really pop AM once you have missile barrage proc, otherwise you're punching Arcane Blast over and over again to build your stacks. There have been those annoying moments for me when I can't get an MB proc to save my life and I'll go ahead and hit missiles. So I guess my question to Blizzard is are they going to handle the proc the same way they did missile barrage? WoW.com's mage columnist brought up a good point in that the spell will be more available to Frost/Fire mages, but unless they also switch some of the talents around, they'll still probably get better damage out of another spell. Depending on how much haste you have, it still takes time to cast missile barrage.
"We are planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more."Why, yes, Blizzard. Those spells are useless. JUST LIKE INCANTER'S ABSORPTION. You're taking away two potential uses for that useless talent and nerfing it even more. For the record, I specced out of it when the patch dropped so I wasn't using it anyway. I generally can't risk the loss of mana from mana shield to get the buff. Rolling Arcane Blast usually takes enough of that as is. I could really care less to see any of these spells go. So it's fine that they're cleaning that out of my spell book.
"The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally won't run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana."This kinda sucks for lowbie mages. I remember leveling and pushing through my mana pool like a hyper kid with a rocket pack and constantly sitting to drink in dungeons while other classes could keep going and got annoyed with waiting on me. Granted, I don't have to deal with that as I have a max level mage, but still, its kind of depressing for anyone who thought they might be interested in the class come Cata. I am glad they're combining them to mana and health food though. Summoning a bajillion stacks of both at low levels took up a lot of valuable bag space.
"Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents."So basically Scorch is going to be Improved Scorch? And they're going to change the talents dealing with this? Sounds great if you're a fire mage and you're bored with your rotation.
"Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana."So I want to know who went and got all the Mage Programmers drunk the night before this stuff was due and then thought it'd be a great idea to add this in? Are they trying to alleviate our need for hit and encourage us not to hit cap? Is this their grand idea on how to fix our mana regen? To be honest with you, I don't have an issue with mana regen unless I die and my evocate isn't up when I get battle rezzed. The short cooldown on Evocate in a standard Arcane Spec does not make it difficult to use it as much as you need it. The part that makes me the most nervous is where they say "ncluding Arcane Missiles that fail to launch." Are they adding something in to nerf missiles? If they are that leaves Arcane mages with ONE reliable spell in their rotation. Who cares if you get some mana back if you don't do any damage?
"The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect."So a cooldown reduction instead of damage and no extra damage taken. Again, a fire thing. So not sure how I feel about it.
"Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells."Are we eliminating the old Pyromaniac? Assuming so, that's decreased crit and mana regen. Hast is good, but that limits this to an AOE only talent. Blargh.
"The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana."An interesting mechanic and a good way to piss your healers off. I have to tell you that one of my pet peeves as a healer is when a warlock eats him or herself for mana and then doesn't bother to fill his health pool back up again, expecting me to use my mana pool to fill it instead. It's just not courteous. Hopefully this will just be a back up plan for when Evocation is on cooldown. Not a reason to have no mana pool at all and just keep casting through and hoping your healer keeps you up. Mages are notoriously squishy. This makes fire mages even squishier.
On to Mastery:
"ArcaneThe drunk mage programmers are at it again. So basically what they're saying is to get the full potential out of your character's damage, you need to keep your mana pool filled the majority of the time. Wait... I forgot. Doesn't casting decrease your mana pool? So should I stop casting? Is this just a push for us to use Evocate and Mana gems more? I suppose the big question on this one is how it will scale. Are we going to be doing 50% damage at 50% mana? This also pulls into focus our aggro: if we have a damage bonus at 100% mana, then we're going to be VERY bursty and so will our aggro. We might have to actually start waiting for 5 sunders again on boss fights. This would make more sense to me in reverse - lower mana = more damage. That'd be a reason for mages to balance their mana pool and damage output. It'd also encourage us to bust through our pool faster and keep casting rather than to stop and refill the pool more often.
Spell damage
Spell Haste
Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage."
"FireSo fire mages are warlocks now? Congratulations. Makes sense since they took focus magic and made it a warlock/mage conspiracy.
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger."
"FrostLast I checked, a Frost PVE rotation pretty much contains two spells: Frostbolt and Deep Freeze. Are they trying to throw in other frost spells as well? It doesn't seem like this would make Frost any more viable for raiding than it already is, and this makes me sad.
Spell damage
Spell Crit damage
Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt."
I know this is just a preliminary preview. I realize things can change between now and Cata and I hope they do. I'm really hoping Blizzard has some other tricks up their sleeve to whip out and surprise us in a good way because right now, the mage is not looking so good for Cataclysm.
So yesterday was Easter and I spent the majority of the day in a blissful state of a full belly and moderate drunkenness. It was good. Today I get bored so I say to myself "I'll log in and see what's shaking on WoW!" I get on with the intention of playing my shaman and doing something fun and interesting when I see a Tauren female standing in front of me in a pink dress and bunny ears. It takes me a moment to realize what this could mean, and then it hits me like a brick wall. Noblegarden started yesterday.
I knew it was coming, as there's a blogger event going on and it's on the calender and it's Easter. I knocked it out last year on my hunter and she has a couple pretty RP dresses from it. Mages can also get the Polymorph Bunny exclusively from this holiday so I'm going to have to suck it up and do it on Istolla. And when I commit to part of a holiday, I just go ahead and do it all, sad as that is. So another holiday is ahead of me.
I hate holiday dailies with a passion. With Love is in the Air, they did it to make the holiday more accessible to people for the title, but it wasn't impossible last year was it? And as much as I like holiday bosses, I'm glad not to have to farm vanity items this time around. But still, the egg collecting wears on you fast. Especially if you're on at peak times and everyone else is collecting there too. It breeds animosity for your fellow player. Fighting over stupid eggs for a stupid holiday so you can get another title you won't wear and tick off another set of achievements for a meta that gives you a dumb looking dragon mount that's slightly faster.
The first go around, the holidays are novel. But they get old fast. I took my mage down to Falconwing and started collecting, but logged out shortly after. Holiday crap makes the burnout worse, not better. It's just another set of tasks to do before you're bored again and when you have to fight others to finish that task, it's just not worth it. It's like busywork your teacher used to give you in school when you had a sub, something to keep you quiet and occupied, but not necessarily something vital to your experience.
Despite my dislike for the holiday crap, I'll probably log in late tonight when everyone else is asleep and knock it out, just so I can get my Bunnymorph and my stupid meta. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. Maybe it just means I'm trying to salvage something that's dying off slowly.
I knew it was coming, as there's a blogger event going on and it's on the calender and it's Easter. I knocked it out last year on my hunter and she has a couple pretty RP dresses from it. Mages can also get the Polymorph Bunny exclusively from this holiday so I'm going to have to suck it up and do it on Istolla. And when I commit to part of a holiday, I just go ahead and do it all, sad as that is. So another holiday is ahead of me.
I hate holiday dailies with a passion. With Love is in the Air, they did it to make the holiday more accessible to people for the title, but it wasn't impossible last year was it? And as much as I like holiday bosses, I'm glad not to have to farm vanity items this time around. But still, the egg collecting wears on you fast. Especially if you're on at peak times and everyone else is collecting there too. It breeds animosity for your fellow player. Fighting over stupid eggs for a stupid holiday so you can get another title you won't wear and tick off another set of achievements for a meta that gives you a dumb looking dragon mount that's slightly faster.
The first go around, the holidays are novel. But they get old fast. I took my mage down to Falconwing and started collecting, but logged out shortly after. Holiday crap makes the burnout worse, not better. It's just another set of tasks to do before you're bored again and when you have to fight others to finish that task, it's just not worth it. It's like busywork your teacher used to give you in school when you had a sub, something to keep you quiet and occupied, but not necessarily something vital to your experience.
Despite my dislike for the holiday crap, I'll probably log in late tonight when everyone else is asleep and knock it out, just so I can get my Bunnymorph and my stupid meta. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. Maybe it just means I'm trying to salvage something that's dying off slowly.
So I know you guys are like "Where the F@*$ have you been Gypsy?" And I'm totally like "Gaiz. Gaiz. Chill. I'm not dead. Just burnt out."
I knew it was coming. Don't we all go through this occasionally? I have taken plenty breaks to get away from WoW since 5+ years ago when I started in beta. I missed some raid content in Old World and BC because of it. And I expect I'll probably have a little slow gap in between ICC and Cataclysm. Sometimes logging into an alt can fill those dull moments in the game, sometimes it's dailies, or achievements, or RPing. Right now, nothing seems to hold much interest for me, besides raiding, which is of course limited. I'm not a permanent member of a 10 man team, so I fill in when I'm needed, but that hasn't been as often as I'd like lately. I've been alternating between my shaman and my mage back and forth when I do get to go, but the funny thing is that when you have no permanent spot and 2+ characters that are raid ready, there's no consistency in the reward. Some weeks, I'm taking the DK tank to ICC to fill in for another tank. Right now she's going on mostly progression nights, so she doesn't get the benefit of the farm night; neither do the other two really, but they're more liable to get a spot more often since both of them have DPS specs and there's more DPS to be replaced than healers or tanks.
So I find myself being spread thin. Which is sad. It also takes away some of my blogging mojo; I usually write about something I'm fired up about or I feel needs to be clarified. When the game is just blah for me, so is writing. Right now my blogger page has about 5 topics that are half done and there's another couple on paper in my notebook (I actually write out a lot of my stuff on paper before I type it.) So this is why I've been absent. So as I log into my reader this morning I say to myself "Why not write about what's keeping you from writing?"
And so here's my burnout post.
What's the best thing to do when WoW starts to hurt? Take a break. Or even just limit your time. My dear friend keeps telling me this and although I'm listening, I haven't found anything else to fill the time yet, so I'm drawn back occasionally, especially if there's a raid spot open. As we speak, my shaman is sitting on the steps of North Bank in Dalaran, staring at the crowd because my PUG daily failed. I know what you're thinking; I'm not following my own advice. And that's not true. I haven't logged in in days it seems and the last time I did, it wasn't for more than an hour.
The problem with taking a break is then you feel like you have too much time on your hands and that of course leaves you open to do all those things you said you'd do but didn't because of WoW. And I'm doing some of them. But I miss the social aspect. I miss my WoW buddies and our antics in dungeons.
You can always find something new to interest you in the game if you find you can't stay away. At this point, nothing new holds interest. I know some people are picking up cross-faction alts, but I'm saving that for Cata and my fuzzydr00d. A lot of people are getting a good look at the world as it is now and will never be again after the expansion hits. I've been looking at this world for 5+ years and pretty much know all of it in and out. Another 80 won't do anything for me at this point, and when things are dull in the game, so is your RP.
I'm sad there's nothing left to feel excited about. Our raids are getting closer and closer to the Lich King and that doesn't make me any more happy about WoW, mostly because I'm not seeing all the content, just filling in where needed. I'm kind of at a loss right now. So in the meantime, I'll log in when I'm needed and log out when it starts pissing me off and hope that something worth getting excited about comes along soon.
I knew it was coming. Don't we all go through this occasionally? I have taken plenty breaks to get away from WoW since 5+ years ago when I started in beta. I missed some raid content in Old World and BC because of it. And I expect I'll probably have a little slow gap in between ICC and Cataclysm. Sometimes logging into an alt can fill those dull moments in the game, sometimes it's dailies, or achievements, or RPing. Right now, nothing seems to hold much interest for me, besides raiding, which is of course limited. I'm not a permanent member of a 10 man team, so I fill in when I'm needed, but that hasn't been as often as I'd like lately. I've been alternating between my shaman and my mage back and forth when I do get to go, but the funny thing is that when you have no permanent spot and 2+ characters that are raid ready, there's no consistency in the reward. Some weeks, I'm taking the DK tank to ICC to fill in for another tank. Right now she's going on mostly progression nights, so she doesn't get the benefit of the farm night; neither do the other two really, but they're more liable to get a spot more often since both of them have DPS specs and there's more DPS to be replaced than healers or tanks.
So I find myself being spread thin. Which is sad. It also takes away some of my blogging mojo; I usually write about something I'm fired up about or I feel needs to be clarified. When the game is just blah for me, so is writing. Right now my blogger page has about 5 topics that are half done and there's another couple on paper in my notebook (I actually write out a lot of my stuff on paper before I type it.) So this is why I've been absent. So as I log into my reader this morning I say to myself "Why not write about what's keeping you from writing?"
And so here's my burnout post.
What's the best thing to do when WoW starts to hurt? Take a break. Or even just limit your time. My dear friend keeps telling me this and although I'm listening, I haven't found anything else to fill the time yet, so I'm drawn back occasionally, especially if there's a raid spot open. As we speak, my shaman is sitting on the steps of North Bank in Dalaran, staring at the crowd because my PUG daily failed. I know what you're thinking; I'm not following my own advice. And that's not true. I haven't logged in in days it seems and the last time I did, it wasn't for more than an hour.
The problem with taking a break is then you feel like you have too much time on your hands and that of course leaves you open to do all those things you said you'd do but didn't because of WoW. And I'm doing some of them. But I miss the social aspect. I miss my WoW buddies and our antics in dungeons.
You can always find something new to interest you in the game if you find you can't stay away. At this point, nothing new holds interest. I know some people are picking up cross-faction alts, but I'm saving that for Cata and my fuzzydr00d. A lot of people are getting a good look at the world as it is now and will never be again after the expansion hits. I've been looking at this world for 5+ years and pretty much know all of it in and out. Another 80 won't do anything for me at this point, and when things are dull in the game, so is your RP.
I'm sad there's nothing left to feel excited about. Our raids are getting closer and closer to the Lich King and that doesn't make me any more happy about WoW, mostly because I'm not seeing all the content, just filling in where needed. I'm kind of at a loss right now. So in the meantime, I'll log in when I'm needed and log out when it starts pissing me off and hope that something worth getting excited about comes along soon.
6 months is a long time in blog years. That's like... gosh... must be something like a century! Windsoar at Jaded Alt has just met that milestone and to celebrate, she's sticking her muse in other people's blogs! And by that I mean, she's offered to give us all fun topics in which to post on ours. I signed up and here's the topic she gave to me, out of the kindness of her heart and the musey-ness of her... heart:
But in all seriousness, warlocks aren't all that bad. They just aren't as good as mages.
So at the behest of Windsoar the Muse, I give you:
"/cast MuseFirst of all, I think it's important to point out that mages do NOT drool. It is in fact the warlocks that drool after they whine about our Mage Conspiracy, ability to summon vast amounts of tasty strudel, and our pwn-age via pewpew lazorz. It must suck to have to rely on a demon (yuck) of all pets to do your dirty work for you. I mean how can you not feel DIRTY after using all that fel magic?
Those wonderful warlocks are quite vocal about their advantages over mages which can be summed up as “Warlocks RULE Mages DROOL!”
As the newest mage (that I’m aware of) in the blog-o-sphere, I’d like you to weigh in, and tell us of the wonders of the mage."
But in all seriousness, warlocks aren't all that bad. They just aren't as good as mages.
So at the behest of Windsoar the Muse, I give you:
Gypsy's Top Ten Reasons Why Mages Are Great!
(Mages' Abilities in Bed List Coming Soon!)
10. Versatility - While we're not a hybrid class and there's a clear DPS raiding spec, the other two are fun in their own way and were buffed by Blizzard in the patch that dropped yesterday (that I refuse to blog about, tyvm.) You can blow things up with Fire, pewpew with Arcane, or freeze and shatter things with Frost. Each spec has it's own little quirks that make it fun and all three of them can put out decent DPS, if not the top of the meter.
9. Ease of Transportation - Let's face it. Portals are cool, especially if you're lazy like me. Having the option of teleporting everywhere leaves you the option of throwing your hearth in another spot you use frequently too. I have mine set at the Argent Tournament, which was useful for TOC and if I was still bothering to do the Tournament dailies, which I am incredibly tired of (Damn you, elusive gruntling pony!) Even if people take advantage of your portals at the end of a raid or instance, I know they actually appreciate it, despite not saying so like the jerks that they are.
8. Summony Stuff! - So warlocks get cookies. Whoop-de-do. WE get pretty sparkly gems and strudel. And portals. And we don't have to suck out people's souls to get it either. Soul cookies taste bitter, anyway, and strudel is nice and sweet.
7. A Pet! - We get a pet too, and ours isn't full of evil and doesn't kill puppies and kittens like warlock pets. Ours is made of magic and water, making it clean and special. It also has a nice Freeze spell for AOE crowd control, unless you have the perma-elemental. I'm kind of hoping Blizzard lets us name them at some point. I have a lexicon of very appropriate names for a water elemental...
6. Invisibility - Now you see me! Now you don't! What warlock can do that trick hmm?
5. Buffs - Not just Arcane Intellect/Brilliance, but also Focus Magic and if you're Arcane there's Arcane Empowerment which is now a static aura. There's also the lesser mentioned and mostly crappy Amplify/Dampen Magic and if you're frost with a Water Elemental, there's Replenishment.
4. Blink - A fun spell and a useful spell at the same time! You can escape stuns with it, get away from rogues, get out of fire, sneak up on an unsuspecting warlock... So long as you don't hit a change in the terrain BAM! You've got 20 yards between where you were and where you are now. Warlocks envy this spell and Blizzard tried to appease them with their Demonic Teleportation but it's limited to a certain space, so they still cry. Blizzard had to give them a pony to shut them up.
3. Polymorph - The original CC for humanoids and one of my favorite spells. Not only does it come in a number of flavors including Black Cat (my fav!), Pig, Turtle, Penguin, Bunny, and the original Sheep. Wowhead.com also lists Polymorph: Turkey so who knows if that won't be coming out at some point too!
2. Mirror Image - Now you see me... NOW YOU SEE FOUR OF ME! Ok, so it's not hard to tell which one is really me, cause I'm the one doing all the pewpew purple lazors, but this spell gives us extra damage with three minions plus spreads our our threat so we can totally blow all our cooldowns at once and get some awesome burst out of it. It can be altered to make 4 mirrors with Glyph of Mirror Image and tier 10 4 piece bonus for mages gives us a huge damage buff during the mirror up time (even if they die!).
1. We've got our own city - That's right. Dalaran belongs to the mages. And don't you other people forget it. Wipe your feet at the landing, folks, so you don't track that Northrend permafrost around. Don't litter or we'll turn you into a pig.
That's 10 reasons why mages are awesome. So if you warlocks don't want to reroll a mage at this point, I don't know what's wrong with you. You should probably see a doctor. As I feel I have fulfilled my duty to the Muse, I end with a "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY WINDSOAR AND JADED ALT!"
When you were little and things weren't going your way, what did you do? I used to always run to my mother, usually in tears, and claim that "it wasn't fair!" It never took her long to remind me that "Life isn't fair" before giving me a hug and a cookie and sending me on my way. It never really seemed to make me feel any better to hear it, but I thoroughly understand what she meant now. "Life isn't fair" is a catch all phrase that doesn't just apply to kickball and being popular, it applies to must every aspect of your life, including WoW.
There's been a lot of talk around the blogging community about flaming other bloggers and respect. It's gotten me to thinking. I've seen the F-word (fair, not fuck) dropped many a time in these conversations. Everyone tries to be fair outwardly, to each other and to themselves, but it seems to me that it's not possible to do so successfully all the time. No matter how hard you try, you're going to piss someone off, and guess what, someone's gonna do the same thing to you. Sometimes this anger comes out in a flame, sometimes a well-thought retort. The problem is that each blogger is an individual entity and none of us really have anyone to answer to. I suppose this is different for the people at WoW.com, who generally get paid for their information and time, but the rest of us are our own boss, legal obligations and website terms of service aside. In that way, we're sort of responsible for holding each other to standards; it's also the job of our readers to keep us humble.
Now, I don't condone trolling by any degree, but I fully expect for someone to let me know if they find some information in my blog wrong. However, I trust that such people will do so with a well-thought-out argument written in a calm argumentative statement. I know what you're thinking; "Gypsy, you're delusional, honey," and I know it. Look at the shit people wrote in comments in reply to my post that was linked on the meta-blog. There were several people who wrote some nice arguments against the what I was bitching about, but there were far more who decided to call me a whiner and not even give me the reason they thought so. I even got some lovely zings about my spelling.
I thought long and hard after that about whether I wanted to keep up with this or not. I know more flames are likely to follow, even if I never get linked again. I'm a sensitive person most of the time, but in my meditation on my future in blogging, I decided that the worst thing I could possibly do was to quit. Life isn't fair and neither is blogging. So I say to my fellow bloggers: "Write what you want to, but be ready to defend what you write. Expect the negative to come with the positive and deal with it as it comes with a deep breath, a lot of thought, and (if you're old enough) a glass of wine."
As for the game of WoW, I've had any number of experiences in which the phrase "Life isn't Fair" applies. When it comes to raiding, I've generally (with much bitterness and negativity) adopted the motto "Fair Does Not Exist." My guild has a rather unique system in which they choose who gets to join their 25 man raids. We're currently progressing (sometimes) through ICC and while there is a group of core raiders, the attendance is iffy from week to week. Everyone is allowed to sign up for our single day of 25 man raiding so long as you're 80. There is no enforced standard for gear, enchants, gemming, spec, DPS, or preparation. Some days we're reaching for people, even so far as to bring PUGs from outside the guild. Some days we have to sit 3 or 4 people so that we don't go over the allotted 25 members. I have been sat twice before. I understood the first time, and I got royally pissed the second time.
The way the system works is they first ask for volunteers. Depending on how nice people are feeling on a given day, or how unmotivated, that reduces our numbers by one to two people, usually officers. Secondly, the raid leaders get up in the super secret vent channel and talk about what they should do. New guild members are automatically either sat or put in the roll off group. Other classes are often separated into specific types, ie casters, hunters, melee, healers, tanks. "Essential members" or generally special people (often healers, raid leaders, and tanks) are exempt from the terrible experience of using a random number to assure you a spot in the 25 man. I'm not kidding. We /random roll for spots.
You could totally be the top DPS in the whole damned raid and still have to sit out so some newb who doesn't know their rotation or is the 7th hunter in the raid can go. Please note that I am not the top DPS in my raid, nor do I have the best gear. However, I think it's disrespectful to a player that despite the time and effort they put into gearing up, enchanting, gemming, learning what to do, and spending hours on progression beating their head against the wall each week, you may have to give up your spot to someone who is there for the shiny purps. This raid has also made me very bitter towards hunters because we never carry more than 4 and the last time I was sat, there were indeed 4 hunters and only 2 mages.
It's a flawed system. I made this known to the raid leaders. I was pissed. I vented to a number of people in whispers and wished the guild insincere luck in raid chat before leaving and going to Target to get a copy of Mass Effect 2 so I could blow up aliens and pretend that they were some of my raid colleagues. In hindsight, I know that this was not directed at me and that it could have happened to any one in the raid. I still know it's a flawed system, but the raid leaders seem to have faith in it and think it's as fair as they can make it. So while I still think it's fucked up that there was a parade of hunters and certain people were exempt from rolling, I've mostly moved on and accepted the event as a "WoW is Not Fair" moment.
There's been a number of other incidents to match as I disagree with our loot distribution system as well as the ethics of other raid members in taking loot. I got called out today by one of the guild loudmouths for taking a 25 man cloak with spirit on it for my resto/ele shaman, so I know it's not just me that feels it. It stressed me out for a little bit and I felt KIND OF bad, until I talked it through with some of my peeps and looked on EJ's BIS information for resto shaman, where said cloak is listed above every other 25 man ICC hard mode drop besides Valithria whom we have not yet attempted successfully. I justified it to myself and while I still feel a little guilty, I've already gemmed and enchanted it so there's no going back now. I'm certain I'll get flack from certain people for scooping up gear on my shammy since I have basically no one to roll against, but I've been on the other side. I've been a mage sharing cloth loot with every other caster class. When people complain, I kind of want to sit them down, give them a hug and a cookie, and remind them that "WoW is not fair."
So let's say you're a raid/guild leader and you're dealing with this. Let's also say that cookies are short and internet hugs are just not potent enough to do the job of a Mom-hug. How do you deal with this "fair" business? (Most of these also apply to a number of other situations, including blogging :) )
There's been a lot of talk around the blogging community about flaming other bloggers and respect. It's gotten me to thinking. I've seen the F-word (fair, not fuck) dropped many a time in these conversations. Everyone tries to be fair outwardly, to each other and to themselves, but it seems to me that it's not possible to do so successfully all the time. No matter how hard you try, you're going to piss someone off, and guess what, someone's gonna do the same thing to you. Sometimes this anger comes out in a flame, sometimes a well-thought retort. The problem is that each blogger is an individual entity and none of us really have anyone to answer to. I suppose this is different for the people at WoW.com, who generally get paid for their information and time, but the rest of us are our own boss, legal obligations and website terms of service aside. In that way, we're sort of responsible for holding each other to standards; it's also the job of our readers to keep us humble.
Now, I don't condone trolling by any degree, but I fully expect for someone to let me know if they find some information in my blog wrong. However, I trust that such people will do so with a well-thought-out argument written in a calm argumentative statement. I know what you're thinking; "Gypsy, you're delusional, honey," and I know it. Look at the shit people wrote in comments in reply to my post that was linked on the meta-blog. There were several people who wrote some nice arguments against the what I was bitching about, but there were far more who decided to call me a whiner and not even give me the reason they thought so. I even got some lovely zings about my spelling.
I thought long and hard after that about whether I wanted to keep up with this or not. I know more flames are likely to follow, even if I never get linked again. I'm a sensitive person most of the time, but in my meditation on my future in blogging, I decided that the worst thing I could possibly do was to quit. Life isn't fair and neither is blogging. So I say to my fellow bloggers: "Write what you want to, but be ready to defend what you write. Expect the negative to come with the positive and deal with it as it comes with a deep breath, a lot of thought, and (if you're old enough) a glass of wine."
As for the game of WoW, I've had any number of experiences in which the phrase "Life isn't Fair" applies. When it comes to raiding, I've generally (with much bitterness and negativity) adopted the motto "Fair Does Not Exist." My guild has a rather unique system in which they choose who gets to join their 25 man raids. We're currently progressing (sometimes) through ICC and while there is a group of core raiders, the attendance is iffy from week to week. Everyone is allowed to sign up for our single day of 25 man raiding so long as you're 80. There is no enforced standard for gear, enchants, gemming, spec, DPS, or preparation. Some days we're reaching for people, even so far as to bring PUGs from outside the guild. Some days we have to sit 3 or 4 people so that we don't go over the allotted 25 members. I have been sat twice before. I understood the first time, and I got royally pissed the second time.
The way the system works is they first ask for volunteers. Depending on how nice people are feeling on a given day, or how unmotivated, that reduces our numbers by one to two people, usually officers. Secondly, the raid leaders get up in the super secret vent channel and talk about what they should do. New guild members are automatically either sat or put in the roll off group. Other classes are often separated into specific types, ie casters, hunters, melee, healers, tanks. "Essential members" or generally special people (often healers, raid leaders, and tanks) are exempt from the terrible experience of using a random number to assure you a spot in the 25 man. I'm not kidding. We /random roll for spots.
You could totally be the top DPS in the whole damned raid and still have to sit out so some newb who doesn't know their rotation or is the 7th hunter in the raid can go. Please note that I am not the top DPS in my raid, nor do I have the best gear. However, I think it's disrespectful to a player that despite the time and effort they put into gearing up, enchanting, gemming, learning what to do, and spending hours on progression beating their head against the wall each week, you may have to give up your spot to someone who is there for the shiny purps. This raid has also made me very bitter towards hunters because we never carry more than 4 and the last time I was sat, there were indeed 4 hunters and only 2 mages.
It's a flawed system. I made this known to the raid leaders. I was pissed. I vented to a number of people in whispers and wished the guild insincere luck in raid chat before leaving and going to Target to get a copy of Mass Effect 2 so I could blow up aliens and pretend that they were some of my raid colleagues. In hindsight, I know that this was not directed at me and that it could have happened to any one in the raid. I still know it's a flawed system, but the raid leaders seem to have faith in it and think it's as fair as they can make it. So while I still think it's fucked up that there was a parade of hunters and certain people were exempt from rolling, I've mostly moved on and accepted the event as a "WoW is Not Fair" moment.
There's been a number of other incidents to match as I disagree with our loot distribution system as well as the ethics of other raid members in taking loot. I got called out today by one of the guild loudmouths for taking a 25 man cloak with spirit on it for my resto/ele shaman, so I know it's not just me that feels it. It stressed me out for a little bit and I felt KIND OF bad, until I talked it through with some of my peeps and looked on EJ's BIS information for resto shaman, where said cloak is listed above every other 25 man ICC hard mode drop besides Valithria whom we have not yet attempted successfully. I justified it to myself and while I still feel a little guilty, I've already gemmed and enchanted it so there's no going back now. I'm certain I'll get flack from certain people for scooping up gear on my shammy since I have basically no one to roll against, but I've been on the other side. I've been a mage sharing cloth loot with every other caster class. When people complain, I kind of want to sit them down, give them a hug and a cookie, and remind them that "WoW is not fair."
So let's say you're a raid/guild leader and you're dealing with this. Let's also say that cookies are short and internet hugs are just not potent enough to do the job of a Mom-hug. How do you deal with this "fair" business? (Most of these also apply to a number of other situations, including blogging :) )
- Stand by your decision. Hopefully before hand you've thought out how you're going to make it and have a damned good reason for choosing what you did. Everything in WoW has the potential to create drama because WoW is full of players who are human beings and are fallible. If you doubt yourself before making the decision, then speak with the players involved before you make the decision. Let them know your thought process. It'll help them understand better in the end.
- Listen to and acknowledge what others have to say. You don't have to agree, but you do have to listen to it and you do have to consider it. An open mind and a good listener are two major requirements of any good raid leader or guild officer. You may not make people happy immediately, but they'll be more likely to support you later if you at least lend them an ear.
- Be creative with your solutions, but be consistent. I'm all for a new solution to the problem. I love problem solving. But it's also important to treat each situation in similar ways, as different as they may be. If you change it up every time, not only will you confuse people, but they'll never know what to expect. When people don't know what to expect, people get scared. And when people get scared, people get defensive and freak out, leaving you a bigger mess to clean up than what you started with.
- Set down rules and standards from the start. If it's raiding, there needs to be set attendance rules, loot rules, and preparation rules. These will hopefully eliminate the people who aren't willing to put in the effort to do their best along with the privilege of getting the purples. And of course the most important part of rules is to make sure that you ENFORCE THEM in an as unbiased fashion as possible.
- Consider past incidents as well as the present. If someone is consistently getting screwed because of a rule or a system, maybe you should consider a change. If a single person is doing the screwing, maybe you should consider how important they are to the raid/guild.
- Remember that WoW is not fair. It's more than likely that you'll end up with the short straw at some point or another. People are going to abuse the system and you're going to be on the other end of it or the one that has to deal with it. It's going to suck, but that's part of what your job is as a leader.
Definition #2 applies here most readily. I have participated on a number of forums in my long years of internet exposure and I have found these specimens everywhere, no matter the type or format of forum or blog. Anything that allows comments also allows trolls. These people like to nitpick, insult, and argue. But what makes a troll tick? How do you stop them?Slang Dictionary (From Dictionary.com)troll
- n.
an ugly person; a grouchy person. : Gee, that dame is a real troll. What's her problem?- n.
an internet user who sends inflammatory or provocative messages designed to elicit negative responses or start a flame-war. (As a fisherman trolls for an unsuspecting fish.) : Don't answer those silly messages. Some troll is just looking for an argument.- n.
a message sent by a troll (sense 2). : Every time I get a troll, I just delete it.
I've played on a variety of server types while on WoW and in on of my more recent server changes I transferred off an (RP)PVP server to a regular RP server. On the previous server which shall remain nameless, I was a part of an ex-boyfriend's guild, widely known on said server for being a troll guild. A small membership of said guild were clever and witty and did indeed troll on the forums pretty hard. The rest of us just raided and laughed in the background at the burns they would throw at nubs and whiners. My ex was the biggest troll of them all, so I got a first hand look at what sits behind the troll.
I can honestly say that some of these people are not bad. Their quick wit and sense of humor provides entertainment for all, and I truly doubt they have the intent to hurt anyone. However, their powers are used for evil in some situations, and despite best intents, people get their feelings hurt. So why do they do it if it can go sour? Usually just to entertain themselves (and occasionally others). Look at the population of people that play WoW - people looking for something to get their mind off other things, like work or school. Apparently the game isn't enough for some of that population, so they turn to the forums and blogs. For others, it's just the thrill of the hunt. Bullies have always existed along with society. Wherever there is community, there will also be bullies. These people feed off the misfortune of others, making themselves feel better in the process. It helps them forget their own problems. For a select special brand of trolls, there's no other explanation other than they're just assholes. Nuff said.
I'll happily admit that sometimes a troll is in the right - putting someone in their place for a ridiculous complaint, shutting them up and moving people on to something more worthwhile to discuss. However, we run across a few problems with these undesirables.
- Sometimes (often), they just don't care. Certainly, they're entitled to not care. No one should or can tell you who or what to care about, and you don't have any business telling others. However, common courtesy often eludes trolls. They have little to no filter and telling them they hurt your feelings is not going to get you anywhere. In fact, they'll probably troll you harder.
- They prey on anyone they see weaker than them. This can cover any number of aspects; physical, mental, emotional, armory, gear score, level... If there's any indication that they've got a one up on you, welcome to the target list. Please note that this is only their opinion of these indications; it may or may not be true. It's also important to note that trolls are not part of any guild or society. There is no code of honor among trolls. This means that they also tend to "eat their young" so to speak.
- They don't always have identifying marks. Trolls don't run around with a badge pinned to their jacket or a special guild icon in their signature. They often post anonymously or under a pseudonym to protect their true identity. This often stems from a degree of cowardice, although it can also be to protect their loved ones. Only the bravest trolls do so under their actual name (in WoW's case their main character).
- They come in all shapes and sizes. I have met male and female trolls. Big ones, small ones; smart ones, dumb ones; mean ones, and funny ones. Without the badge mentioned previously, there is no way to tell who or what is going to lash out at you in a post or even why.
- They cannot be exterminated. They will always exist. There will always be replies of "QQ more" waiting on you in your forum post or your blog. Where one disappears, two pop up in their place. This applies to banning, deleting, and other means of removal. IP addresses are readily available as are accounts.
With patch 3.3.3, mages everywhere are reeling and waving angry pitchforks at the Blizzard programmers.
Ok, so not all mages, but arcane mages specifically.
Yeah, that part. The Incanter's Absorption nerf. So currently, this amazing talent will allow a mage a gain in spell power whenever any sort of shield or ward absorbed damage. There's also a limit on how much it will allow. This was amazing if you had a disc priest in your raid who liked you enough to keep you bubbled or in certain fights like Twin Valks in TOC. I've done 12k damage on that fight alone while having this talent maxed out. Unfortunately, with the nerf, Blizzard is taking a limited damage buff and making it even more limited from the look of it.
Let's look at the changes:
So Blizzard, I say to you "Fix Fire First, Then Nerf." Kthx.
Mages
* Frostbolt: Spell power scaling on this spell has been increased by approximately 5%.
* Talents
o Arcane
+ Arcane Empowerment: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc off of critical strikes. The self damage buff remains unchanged.
+ Incanter's Absorption: This talent now only grants additional spell power when damage is absorbed by Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward, or Ice Barrier. The limit of 5% of the mage's health on the spell power buff has been removed.
o Fire
+ Burning Soul: Threat reduction is now 10/20%, up from 5/10%.
o Frost
+ Brain Freeze: This talent now allows your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt to be instant and cost no mana. There is a small internal cooldown to keep the Frostfire Bolt from immediately triggering Brain Freeze again.
Ok, so not all mages, but arcane mages specifically.
+ Incanter's Absorption: This talent now only grants additional spell power when damage is absorbed by Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward, or Ice Barrier. The limit of 5% of the mage's health on the spell power buff has been removed.
Yeah, that part. The Incanter's Absorption nerf. So currently, this amazing talent will allow a mage a gain in spell power whenever any sort of shield or ward absorbed damage. There's also a limit on how much it will allow. This was amazing if you had a disc priest in your raid who liked you enough to keep you bubbled or in certain fights like Twin Valks in TOC. I've done 12k damage on that fight alone while having this talent maxed out. Unfortunately, with the nerf, Blizzard is taking a limited damage buff and making it even more limited from the look of it.
Let's look at the changes:
- The changes in the actual absorb will be limited with the new talent. Instead of any type of absorb from any type of shield, now only the mage's own absorbs will apply. So that means the absorbs from priest/paladin bubbles as well as magic absorbs from the light/dark auras in Twin Valks. The available absorbs for mages are Mana Shield, Frost/Fire Ward, and Ice Barrier. Mana Shield is fine, except it subtracts from your mana when you absorb damage. Frost/Fire Ward are short cast spells, lasting only 30 seconds with a 30 second shared cooldown. They also have limited absorb amounts that end up being less than PWS. Ice Barrier is a great spell, but it requires you to go a ways into the Frost Tree, so while this is still viable for two tree-ed mages who don't go deep in either tree, it's not really viable for a mage deep in either tree -- both talents are on the 7th tier in their prospective tree.
- The second change is the removal of the health limitation. This is great! Accept it's basically a moot point. My mage has 18,463 unbuffed health. Currently the SP buff from my IA can't exceed 5% of that or 923 spellpower. Max rank PWS has an absorb limit of 2230 damage. Assuming you took that all in one hit, you'd get a buff of 334 SP (fully talented IA) for 10 seconds. These little buffs do stack so after three such hits if your priest has the talent to put up the shield again in 4 seconds. So you could keep stacking them up to 3 times in theory before the limit was reached. For the sake of being thorough, with Ice Barrier's absorb up to 3300 you could get 495 spell power with a one minute cooldown, excluding Cold Snap. Mana shield absorbs up to 1330 damage, so 199 spell power. Frost/Fire Ward absorbs 1950 damage, so 292 spell power. With the cooldowns on the available spells with this nerf, it would be difficult to reach the health limit anyway without rolling all the cooldowns one after another. I can certainly see why they put the limit in before since mages were soloing Naxx with it, and I can understand why they're taking it away now since it doesn't matter.
So Blizzard, I say to you "Fix Fire First, Then Nerf." Kthx.
So it's Holiday time in Azeroth again and players on every server are laboring over achievements to try and win themselves a fabulous purple protodrake, by far the shiniest sparkliest flying mount in the game, inspired by Liberache and Elton John's love child. And the need for this mount has brought out the worst in Azeroth, pitting players against each other for spawns and drops to increase their numbers for MORE achievement points. It's kind of sad to see how people are dominating at the expense of others for gear that will only help minimally. Granted, some of it is quite fun (The Heartbreaker cracks me up and must be acquired for my mage) and cute (I love my Toxic Wasteling), but is it worth the trouble in the end?
Perhaps, but if you have multiple characters, it gets a bit old. I currently have my original main, an 80 hunter, who sits around and plays go fish with her pets most of the time. I simply don't enjoy the hunter that much anymore. However, I worked pretty hard at getting her all the metas of most of the other holidays and she's 3 metas away from the Violet Proto: The Love Fool, Elder, and Matron. Luckily Elder I require a single elder in a single dungeon I missed last year because she wasn't 80 yet and couldn't get into the heroic version. But The Love Fool is a long arduous achievement that requires dailies, one of my arch nemeses. Brewmaster was just as painful with it's token trade and dailies, but I managed. This one, I'm not so sure I will, simply because so much work is required. Perhaps if she was still my main, the story would be different, however I have taken up the mantle of the mage, on top of having a tanking DK, and a quickly rising Ele/Resto shaman. The DK I really have no plan to get metas on just because I'm not a melee fan. The Shaman can't achieve them yet because she isn't 80 yet and I don't think I have the time or energy to devote to that before Love is in the Air expires. But the mage has gotten several other metas and is closer than any other.
So I ask myself "what's so great about the purple proto?" and I find myself stumped. It's a faster mount, having the 310% speed upgrade, but it's butt ugly to put it simply and being the vain mage I am, I won't ride it. Even if I get it for the hunter, she's behind in gear and I don't enjoy her so she won't get much play time with it.
So all I can figure is that I really want the nerd points, that magic achievement point number that says "I spend way too much time playing WoW for no return!" I was discussing this very thing with guildies today and it kind of stumped us why the Red Proto that requires arduous amounts of time and SKILL to achieve doesn't have the speed bonus. The hard mode drakes do, but this little guy doesn't. Is it too easy to get? Surely not, as anyone whos attempted Less-Rabi 500 times can attest. Despite Blizzard nerfing a bunch of the achievements required for the Red Proto, it's still not completely attainable unless you get really lucky or have some friends with mad skillz. And it's a heck of a lot better looking than Violet by far.
Despite the logic behind letting these achievements go, I still pursue them with vigor, finding it necessary to finish what I've started and get an item that will rot in my mount list. Besides, the extra mount will help me get closer to the ugly Red Dragonhawk achievement...
Perhaps, but if you have multiple characters, it gets a bit old. I currently have my original main, an 80 hunter, who sits around and plays go fish with her pets most of the time. I simply don't enjoy the hunter that much anymore. However, I worked pretty hard at getting her all the metas of most of the other holidays and she's 3 metas away from the Violet Proto: The Love Fool, Elder, and Matron. Luckily Elder I require a single elder in a single dungeon I missed last year because she wasn't 80 yet and couldn't get into the heroic version. But The Love Fool is a long arduous achievement that requires dailies, one of my arch nemeses. Brewmaster was just as painful with it's token trade and dailies, but I managed. This one, I'm not so sure I will, simply because so much work is required. Perhaps if she was still my main, the story would be different, however I have taken up the mantle of the mage, on top of having a tanking DK, and a quickly rising Ele/Resto shaman. The DK I really have no plan to get metas on just because I'm not a melee fan. The Shaman can't achieve them yet because she isn't 80 yet and I don't think I have the time or energy to devote to that before Love is in the Air expires. But the mage has gotten several other metas and is closer than any other.
So I ask myself "what's so great about the purple proto?" and I find myself stumped. It's a faster mount, having the 310% speed upgrade, but it's butt ugly to put it simply and being the vain mage I am, I won't ride it. Even if I get it for the hunter, she's behind in gear and I don't enjoy her so she won't get much play time with it.
So all I can figure is that I really want the nerd points, that magic achievement point number that says "I spend way too much time playing WoW for no return!" I was discussing this very thing with guildies today and it kind of stumped us why the Red Proto that requires arduous amounts of time and SKILL to achieve doesn't have the speed bonus. The hard mode drakes do, but this little guy doesn't. Is it too easy to get? Surely not, as anyone whos attempted Less-Rabi 500 times can attest. Despite Blizzard nerfing a bunch of the achievements required for the Red Proto, it's still not completely attainable unless you get really lucky or have some friends with mad skillz. And it's a heck of a lot better looking than Violet by far.
Despite the logic behind letting these achievements go, I still pursue them with vigor, finding it necessary to finish what I've started and get an item that will rot in my mount list. Besides, the extra mount will help me get closer to the ugly Red Dragonhawk achievement...
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