Field Report #30 - I Am That Noob Now

Back in the day when I played WoW, after a year or so of finding my footing, I started to play fairly seriously. Especially when I started to get into raiding in TBC, I was one of those people who pored over logs, read every detail in patch notes and analyzed it all to bits. I wrote posts on how to play classes I didn't even main, because I even put time into analyzing their rotations (can't say whether my guides were good or not though). While I hope I never looked down on the players who spent their time doing other things, I do know occasionally thinking "why wouldn't you want to bring your A-game to every group?".

Now I find myself constantly being that person. I don't know tacs for raids (other than what I barely remember from having done them 10+ years ago). I don't know what I need attunement for nor do I keep track of my rep on any of my characters (it doesn't help that I level everything simultaneously). Just the other week I joined a raid for Mount Hyjal only to find out I can't enter. I was mortified... My guild asked me if I wanted to join for their raids and I was almost embarrassed to say I hadn't signed for anything yet because I have no idea how Discord works. Fortunately they were kind enough to work me through it slowly and it's not that hard after all.

I have no idea what my BiS gear is and I only just downloaded an Addon that allows me to see what loot I could get from bosses (AtlasLoot) so that I can join in on that Reserve Loot thingy in Pugs. When the new patch was released and we suddenly only needed Honored to get into Heroics I had no idea until someone told me. Joining a Pug for Zul'Aman this week I quickly read some notes on raid tacs while I was making my way there so I wouldn't ruin the evening for everyone else (I think I did ok). I used to know these things way ahead and plan ahead, knowing exactly where I was going, what I was doing and what I needed. I used to be the person who explained these details to other people. Maybe it is karma then that I am receiving the same from others now.

Because now I log in and I don't have a clue. I feel like I have to ask about everything. I feel like I am constantly left behind, gear-wise. Everyone is going to fancy raids and have all the fancy gear with the fancy DPS. I am never the best in my groups.

This might sound horrible but it's actually all just pretty amusing. It's how I started out in WoW and somehow I've come full circle. I've seen what it is like on the hardcore side of things, doing the server first runs and discussing every fight with your fellow guildies. While I loved that part of WoW as well, I don't miss it. I enjoy this side of WoW just as much, for completely different reasons. I log in and I don't have a mission. I have nowhere I need to be and nothing special I need to do. It's whatever I have time for or brain power left in my head to do that evening. I don't have a purpose other than what I fancy for the evening and it's exactly the way I want it to be. 

Fortunately I feel like people have patience for my lack of knowledge, and hopefully my cheery demeanor can make up for some lacking gear. I still try to do my best of course. And best of all, I finally got to answer my question - now I know exactly why some people don't bring their A-game. 

The Classic Dungeon Experience

 So far Classic WoW has been pretty much exactly the way I remember it, i.e amazing. There has been one notable difference though, at least to me, and that is the dungeon experience.

While I do recall having fun with dungeoning back in the day, I struggle to remember why or how that was possible, because most of my memories are of it taking way too long and people both playing and behaving very badly. The playing badly part I don't mind so much as long as there is a level of effort put in, and I know for a fact I was far from great myself. And to be fair, it was to be expected. Back then the game was completely new to all of us and even those with previous MMO experience (unlike me) still didn't know anything about tactics, best gear or best talents.

Unrelated picture of a scared priest.

This time around though I rarely find a player who seems to be completely new to the game. Either they have played a lot of retail, Vanilla or both. And in either case they mostly know what needs to be done and I've had a blast going through dungeons so far. I don't need people to play perfectly and I don't need people to be social geniuses, as long as everything is done in good effort and politeness.

So I managed to play a year of Classic and umpteen low and mid-level instances before I ended up having one of those experiences. One of those that took me right back to all the memories I have of everything taking just too long and nothing ever really clicking. Like, I can't even point at any one person and say "this failed because of you" but the group effort failed all together.

Ok, in this particular case there were definitely some warning signs early on. The fact that it takes almost an hour to assemble a group is not one of them though. A lot of instances are literally half an hour of running away and without Dungeon Finder Tool you're left to having to wait for the right person to show up at the right time, that's just the way Classic works and I'm fine with that.

I found a group for SM Graveyard and Library on my alliance priest (whom I have a lot to say about by the way, but that is matters for another post) and had to run myself from Wetlands, through Arathi, Hillsbrad and Tirisfal to get to the instance. I was the last one there and everyone had patiently waited for me without complaining. Off to a good start. 

Unrelated picture of a priest in Darnassus.

Except that when we were going to start our hunter wasn't present. Well, that's fine. He had probably gone afk without telling us while waiting, that's understandable. We cleared the first boss in SM GY before the hunter finally shows back up, at this point we had waited at least 15 minutes for him so that's a pretty long afk, but ok, we had done fine without him.

It was going to turn out there was a reason for that as he was ending up to be more of a hassle than gain for the group. He would stand around just not doing anything for minutes at a time, often not going in to action until prompted by someone asking for his attention in party chat. "Bad lag" he says. With lag that bad it's a wonder you can play this game at all, I think. But then again, he was playing a hunter.

Fortunately SM GY is not a difficult instance and we get through it without trouble. Off to SM Library, and the first half is fine, except for the hunter still being mostly afk. He runs around with Aspect of the Cheetah until I tell him and has full mana after every fight he actually does engage in... but I choose to keep my mouth mostly shut, and so does everyone else. We're still doing fine, after all.

After the first boss problem starts to arise though. The hunter starts "lagging" in to extra mobs, pulling more than the tank can comfortably handle. We have our first wipe. No one is complaining, but we're telling each other to be careful not to pull extras. The warrior turns out to be one of those who doesn't bother corpse running but just waits for someone to res him instead. The mobs in SM Lib are fairly tricky actually, with a mana burn I try to hide from as much as possible and a nasty kick that will silence you if you're not careful.

Unrelated picture of a priest running.

That kick will be the cause of our next wipe, just before the final boss. No one is to blame really, it is one of those breakdowns of team effort I described earlier. Or maybe rather an accumulation of mistakes that breaks the camels back. Even though I use Fade I get aggro from mobs throughout the instance, and getting my spells silenced means the tank dies. The first problem might be that the tank doesn't pull the mobs in to a safe spot, but forces us to fight them where they can more easily aggro more mobs. This also means the hunter often stands in places where he more easily aggros more mobs. The paladin or warrior don't use their cooldowns to save us when shit hits the fan and I forget not to cast a heal when I have aggro from one of the kickers. So we wipe.

We all made mistakes, any one of them miniscule but all together too many to keep the group alive.

The second time we wipe we come back to the instance fully respawned. We had literally been about three mobs away from finishing it, and now we have to clear it all over again. But we decide to do it. And through everything we manage to somehow keep our calm and not start yelling things. I just get mildly annoyed when the tank druid starts needing on cloth caster gear. I mean come on dude, that's just not cool. But I also remind myself that this mid-level gear is a drop in the ocean and it doesn't matter. It really doesn't.

But in the end everything took way longer than it needed to and some have been very much carried by the efforts of others. While it didn't leave me angry, sad or even particularly frustrated it definitely left me extremely mentally drained. And I don't know, was it even fun? In the end I probably feel like I could've been without that experience and that is probably a first in Wow Classic for me.

Field Report #26 - The Shamanistic Ordeal

I got the closest I've ever been to a dungeon run that was not great the other night. After having done some tanking and dpsing I also got the urge to do some healing. I pondered the different classes and decided on a shaman. I pondered levelling as a dps and healing in dungeons, similarly to what I am doing with my tank, but felt like I wanted to try actually being resto. So then I decided against questing because questing as a resto shaman just seemed too horrible.

So there we have set the stage for my run in Wailing Caverns. I had turned 18 and done several very successful runs in RFC. I thought I would be able to heal a group through WC without too much trouble. I was only partially correct.

Happy Halloween by the way.

We got there and I immediately notice that the (level 20 warrior) tank didn't pull back with the raptors. Anyone who has done a run in WC knows that it is usually a bad idea not to, but I didn't really have time to react to before we suddenly had several more mobs on us. And when I say "us" I really mean "me".

I don't blame the tank for anything but failing to pull the mobs back, and maybe he was new to the instance, so that's fine.  In the end it didn't matter because we made it through the overpull anyway.
Then the rogue speaks up. "Ey healer. Stop pulling all those extra mobs".

Eh, I'm sorry?

Ok, so we have another person who has never been to Wailing Caverns before apparently. It was true that I was low level (though not even the lowest level in the group). And because the mobs come running from afar they run to me first since I get aggro through my healing. I can see how the rogue put two and two together and assumed I was the problem. No biggie, let's just set the record straight.

I pointed out the emote in the chat and explained the mechanic. But the rogue refused to believe me. He claimed he had already done several runs without any issue. I didn't want to throw blame on the tank so I just said "fine, I'll stay all the way back here and we'll see what happens".

To no surprise, the raptors still came running. And they didn't just attack me. What was a surprise though, after I pointed it out the rogue actually responded with "I might have been wrong". Someone admitting they were wrong on the interwebs? That's as rare as a unicorn. But that is now the closest I have been to what could've turned into an angry run, and it wasn't very close at all. Classic is still showing itself at its best side, and the players playing it as well.

Speaking of shaman healing though...

Before level 20 when I get Lesser Healing Wave it is a whole lot of spamming Healing Wave! And unless you count throwing out the occasional Stoneskin/Strength of Earth totem that is literally the only thing I am doing (I interrupt some times too I guess). And since someone (yeah, me) decided levelling solely through instances was a good idea it's just been Healing Waves all over this place for the last four levels. Level 14-18 doesn't sound like it should take that long, but when all you do is press one button over and over it's unsurprisingly quite dull.

So why not just go quest? Good question. I've levelled my orc warrior and undead warlock pretty simultaneously, meaning I've done a quest on the one character and then gone and done the same quest on the other character (for the most part, the warlock did Stonetalon Mountains which the warrior has not). The thought of doing all those quests again on my troll shaman really didn't appeal to me. And especially not since I was going to go all resto.

For a short moment I thought about doing the quests in Tirisfal and Silverpine because I love those areas so much, but then I remembered that there is no shaman trainer over there so then the prospect of going back and forth every two levels to train didn't sound particularly fun either.

I am level 19 now. Next up is the horrendous Water Totem Quest at level 20 (if I remember correctly) and I'll get both Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Stream Totem. That's not bad. It'll give me a few more tools to work with.

Interestingly enough though, my ordeal with my resto shaman has made me come through whatever blockage I had regarding playing a healing priest (Heal! Shields! Renews! Lesser Heals! So many fun things!). So yeah, I am also leveling one of those now - a dwarf, because for now I've had enough of the horde areas for a while.

Field Report #25 - Who Needs Tanks and Priests?

No Tank
Interestingly enough I find there seems to be as much lack of healers as there is tanks when I am trying to group up in WoW Classic. This might be a bit skewed by the fact that I often play a tank and thus I spend more time looking for a healer than a tank. But as I've mentioned before, my experience of grouping for dungeons has so far been a positive one. This didn't change when I tried to get a group for Shadowfang Keep on my level 23 warlock the other night.

We did in fact find a healer but could not find a tank. I was worried the group would dissolve, but instead the healer asked the high-leveled rogue (27) if he'd be interested in tanking, saying that he himself was up to the task of healing him in that case. At first I was at least mildly concerned at the prospect of having a rogue tank, but when I remembered I could use my voidwalker as a back-up tank I thought it could, if nothing else, turn out to be an interesting experiment. The last time I tried to tank an instance without an actual tank was something like Botanica in Burning Crusade (we used a voidwalker back then too, as Demonology warlocks were pretty broken for a while).

SFK always makes me think of Tom Jones. It's a long story...

I pride myself in being pretty flexible with group setups and especially with group progress, as long as whatever is happening isn't due to anyone trying to ruin things. We decided to go along with our plan and recruited another dps for the final slot instead. It turned out to be another warlock, so equipped with one high-level character (the rest of us were around level 23-24) and soul stones/healthstones/pets worth of two warlocks we took on Shadowfang Keep.

And really had no issue getting through it. While the voidwalker isn't the best tank (especially not at keeping threat), the healer and the fact that we managed to generally spread out damage pretty evenly across the group, made sure we got through it fairly smoothly. We did one silly overpull where us two locks and the priest died, but because of soul stones we were quickly back on our feet without much slowdown.

Everyone was having a blast, we were joking around and I ended up on friends list and in their guild (it turned out the other four in the group were already guildies, I hadn't even noticed until the end!). Everyone was doing what they could to move forward, no one called anyone out for the few mistakes that were made. We genuinely congratulated each other when someone else got a gear drop and there even was a blue BoE drop that no one tried to ninja.

It tries its best though.

To me it was the essence of what makes WoW Classic so damn good. It was one of those times when you regain faith in humanity and remember that the vast majority of online players out there are not toxic a-holes, but nice people who are just looking to have a good time. While I know asshats reside in WoW Classic as well, it's just the way some people are and they'll turn up in any population, I've always found WoW in general has been fairly void of the worst kind. Maybe I've just been lucky, but the way some communities in other games have been described to me I just don't see that happening in WoW.

No Priest
For the 8 years during which I played a lot of WoW I mained a healing priest for almost all of that and I never stopped loving it. I started playing it about 9 months after I first started playing (early 2006) and enjoyed it through thick and thin. I also played a lot of alts, of which tanks and especially warrior tanks became another favorite of mine. Rogues were probably the class I enjoyed and played the least (actually, feral dps druid I probably played less, but I tanked a lot as a druid). Now that I've started playing WoW Classic I am currently enjoying my warlock the most but I'm interested in playing most of the other classes too.

Weirdly enough, I really have no desire to play a priest though, whether healing or dpsing (not that shadow priest is viable for much else than questing in Classic). I played other priest healers than my main before and enjoyed it just as much, but this time around… it just feels wrong. I'm not sure if it's fatigue, the fact that priest healer is the class I know by far the best even from Vanilla WoW or simply the fact that it just wouldn't be the same somehow.

It's a bit of a dilemma because I actually would really like to heal. But the thought of priest healing doesn't appeal to me. I never enjoyed druid healing much for whatever reason. That leaves paladin and shaman. Shaman is the one I've enjoyed the most out of those two, but the thought of a) levelling a resto shaman and b) some of the totems quests that you have to do are really putting me off.

Not even the totem likes the totem class quest.

I am nurturing this idea that I'll level only through instances, saving me having to quest as resto, only doing the bare minimum of quests (like abovementioned totem quests) but I am worried that I'll quickly be bored with doing the same instances over and over. We'll see what I end up doing, I am in no rush either way.

I also realize that if this is the biggest dilemma in my life right now I can consider myself quite lucky.

Jaded
Meanwhile I am actually trying to not fall into the same trap as last time I played WoW, namely ignoring every other game out there. I really do want to play other games simultaneously, because if there is one thing that gives me existential angst it's the size of my backlog that I need to get through.

I am currently playing Resident Evil 2 remake Claire A (after completing Leon A) with the bf and also Jade Empire.

Jade Empire is one of those games I find quite meh but it's got flow enough to keep me playing at least. There are so many things about this game that are frustratingly close to being almost good that half the time I think I want to complete it just so I have a legitimate reason to write up a review of it, complaining about all these things. It's my intention to make that happen because I definitely have a lot to say about it. WoW Classic is not helping because it's difficult to motivate myself to play a barely engrossing game when the other option is one I thoroughly enjoy. Why do it then you might ask? Well because I want to check it off my list, simply! And write that review, like I said.

Images from classic.wowhead.com.

Some Things in WoW Classic are Better Than Vanilla

Ok, it's been 14 years since I started playing Vanilla so I'll admit it's possible that my memory of it could've been a bit corrupted over the years. Yet it is immensely fun to compare what I remember Vanilla being to how I experience Classic right here and now. There are actually a few things that are quite different from my memories, and one of them is the dungeoning experience.

To be fair, my highest level right now is 25 so I haven't done any of the crazy stuff at endgame or even mid-game (hello Maraudon). But I have some memories of even Wailing Caverns that aren't too positive.

People returning to Classic, like me, had a pretty good idea of what was waiting for them and most of these things have come true and have been pretty much as I expected/remembered. The scrounging for money, the endless running, the endless dying to everything. Some things are easier now just because I have so much experience - I rarely get lost in quests simply because I still know most of them by heart. But reading the quest texts I can appreciate that some of them are extremely vague. I had to go find some dude "east of the Crossroads". No he was up a hill east of the Crossroads. That information could've been very useful, because just "east of the Crossroads" is a pretty big area.

But then we've got the instancing. My memory of instancing is spending a lot of time finding a group, spending a lot of time getting everyone to the instance, spending a lot of time inside the instance. Then if there ever was a wipe, and there always was, invariably someone got lost or left the group. In case of the latter, one in the party had to run out of the instance, maybe and probably even hearth to a city to find another group member. This could take another amount of "a lot of time" if you needed to find a healer or a tank. Then these two needed to head back to the instance again where the rest of the group had been idling, hopefully (and then you needed to help them get to the instance as most instances has elites waiting outside). That's assuming someone else didn't give up halfway through waiting and left. Rinse and repeat.

In short, my memory of doing instances in Vanilla was that it would take a lot of time and patience. Because of this I was prepared that dungeons wasn't something I was going to be able to do much, since I have such little time to play (and some of it I spend writing stuff like this instead).

I decided to give Ragefire Chasm a go because it doesn't have elites at the entrance and it is already inside a city. It removed a lot of the time-consuming obstacles that other dungeons suffer from. It went so smoothly that I decided to do a couple more and then I even had the guts to give Wailing Caverns a go. That went smoothly too. In fact, the elites outside the instance weren't half as difficult as I remember them being. The instances weren't anywhere near as difficult as I remember them being.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like you can just dance your way through the instances. They require some careful pulling and cooperation from the group, which I absolutely love about them. But through the ~8 runs I've done in different instances so far, only once have I wiped (stray pet of course) and never have I've had a group that's been a lot of hassle. People have done what they're supposed to and have been good team mates. People have rolled for chests. People have been cutting eachother a slack when something has gone wrong. People have been chatting about this and that and throwing jokes around (unlike the complete silence I mostly experienced in the later expansions I played). Some people (hunters) have been taking my loot, but oh well. That is part of the Vanilla experience.

I've got this pet theory that because the vast majority (I am guessing) of people who are playing Classic either have experience of playing it before or at least have experience of playing WoW, there is just so much more pooled up experience in doing anything in the game than it was back then, and it shows. Finding information on how to play your class or what gear is good and where to find it is so easy now compared to back then. It seems to me that people are more patient and a lot more skillful than what I remember from back then. I know for sure I am.

Zinn's Nostalgic Instances - Ramparts

Name any BC or Classic dungeon and I've probably done it about 100 times by now, with few exceptions. The Wrath dungeons are closing in on that amount. Whenever they change one of the old instances, and in the case of the Classic ones they've basically remade them all in some way by now, I both get happy and sad. Sad that the old instance is gone forever, because in a way it is, and happy that they're adapting it to the style of the new times so that more people can enjoy it. I think this is a reason I quite like the BC instances so much. They've been simplified almost beyond recognition, but overall they at least still look a lot like the originally used to.

By doing these instances on my alts, mostly burning through parts and bosses that used to be incredibly difficult, I chuckle to myself as I remember the olden times and think about the massive difference in challenge that the instance now holds compared to when it was current content. I think about boss skills and mob groups that used to require a massive cooperative effort from the group to pull off, and compare it to the mass-pulls of the runs I do today. Of course there is a difference in difficulty because I am doing normal rather than heroic runs on my alts, and I wouldn't even want the instances to be as hard as they used to be when I am only online for 30 min to do a quick pug run. Eventhough some of the old instances hold some challenge still (when done in the appropriate level) even on heroic most of them are something you just dance through without any thought.

But doing the pug run makes me remember how much fun I had struggling through these dungeons and I wanted to commemorate those memories and share them, somehow. So how should I put this. For anyone who was there I am sure you've got your own set of horrible and awesome memories connected to any or all of what was the dreadful heroics of BC. I hope this can be a little trip down memory lane for you. For you who weren't there, maybe this can be a tiny glimps into a world that just doesn't exist anymore. A ruthless, unforgiving time when Blizzard wanted you to sacrifice a lot more of your time and sanity than they ever do nowadays. They new they could ask for it because we were ready to give it to them. Over and over we bashed our heads against these walls and only rarely did they crumble. Only with the best of teamwork and group effort. Which only made it feel all the more rewarding. Like those rare times when I end up in a pug today who does well in an instance not because of overgearing it and steam rolling through but because everyone does their best and actually tries to help eachother. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that feeling, but to me it's like everyone in that pug just became my very best friend for a short moment in my life.

I don't know if this is something that will interest anyone else, but to me that kind of what a blog is all about anyway.

Unlike heroics nowadays, most mobs were pretty annoying in old heroics. This isn't necessarily a good thing, hence the use of the word "annoying" rather than "challenging". The BC heroics inherited stuns and fears that lasted more than five seconds from the Classic dungeons, back when Blizzard still thought it would be hilarious to see players struggle to keep aggro and eachother alive when being incapacitated for what seemed like an eternity.

The key for these instances was crowd control, and that is what I do like about them. Eventhough I think Blizzard overestimated how much puggers are willing to put into a group filled with strangers they'll never meet again, when it did click and everyone just felt like helping out it was one of the best experiences ever, like I already mentioned. You did need a lot of patience (and back then not only for the instance but for the whole group forming and gathering as well), and very few puggers had it which Blizzard soon realized.

Nonetheless, players are prone to look back even at the worst of times with happy nostalgic memories glinting in their eyes, including these. It's easy to forget all the struggle and frustration behind those horrible pulls, mobs and bosses, but this was back when we had the time for it and just didn't know any better.

Happy Pills for everyone

I woke up in an exceptionally cheery mood the other day, stood up and decided that this was the day to end all whine. I was fed up with the cranky mood that had been spreading around the bloggosphere and among WoW-players in general. Don't get me wrong, I love to read posts about why someone stopped playing, why this and that just doesn't work or is a bad idea. I do my fair share of whining around here. I agree with nearly all the general opinions about what currently isn't very well designed in WoW, from the raid fight design philosophy, "bring the player not the class"-failure, how mistreated melee have been this expansion and so on. But you know what? I am still playing this game. I know many of you out there actually aren't, you've actually walked the walk and not just talked the talk. And that's exactly it - like I always tell Love when he complains about how badly designed druids are (and in many cases I agree with him): If they're really that awful, then why do you play them? No one is forcing us to this game, and I am still enjoying it. So in my case there still has to be more good than bad about the game, even when not counting the fact that I've got a lot of friends to play it with.

Therefore I thought I'd talk a little about what I enjoy about WoW. I realize some of the things I mention might come out as ironic, but that's absolutely not my meaning.

The Instances
Currently, there is actually no instances that I absolutely dislike. I might sigh when I get Deadmines or Halls of Origination, but the truth is I still enjoy doing them. Maybe not as much as another instance, but more than say, go read a book or watch a movie. At least at that particular moment, because otherwise I would log and do those stuffs instead. So what do I enjoy about the instances in particular?

I like that some of the instances have optional bosses - HoO can be really short or rather long depending on what you prefer. You can either get loads of JP from it or just head straight for the end boss, same goes with Throne of the Tides and Shadowfang Keep.

I like that some instances have really challenging trash packs, because how you handle them will really show the quality of the group. There is something extra rewarding about dealing successfully with a painful trash pack like the first groups of HoO or some of the packs in ZA/ZG just because of good teamwork. I wouldn't like it if it was all equally easy no matter how little you cared.

I actually think nearly all boss fights in all the instances are pretty fun. It would be faster to name the ones I don't like than the ones I do like. Especially out of a tanks perspective do they offer a challenge without being over the top difficult, they require some teamwork and I still feel that there is something to learn from many of them. Considering how many there are they're still pretty diverse and not many are similar to another. Just look at such diverse fights as Setesh and Temple Guardian Anhuur in HoO, High Prophet Barim in LC, Daakara and Jan'alai in ZA, Zanzil, Jin'Do and Venoxis in ZG, Erunak/Ghur'sha and Ozumat in TotT, Forgemaster Throngus in GB and that's just mentioning a few of all the rather unique fights. You probably don't recognize the names of half of these bosses, I know I couldn't name all the bosses in HoO off the top of my head if someone so offered me 1000g for it, eventhough I must've killed them 50 times each by now.

I really like the esthetic design of the instances, from the vast epic Indiana Jones feeling of LC and HoO to the Thousand Leagues Under the Sea feeling of TotT. I love the sky temple of Vortex Pinnacle and the rough yet sparkly caves of BRC and Stonecore. The eerie feeling of Shadowfang Keep and working your way down the mine shafts of Deadmines. I still discover details in every single one of them, just by looking in a different direction than I normally do. I tend to tunnel vision on the next trash pack or on my rotation or on my bars (if I am healing), which is understandable. But with very little effort, just lifting my head from the sweat and blood in front of me, can I notice all the beauty that the instance actually is.

The Classes
Eventhough I definitely enjoy some classes and specs more than others, there are extremely few that I find outright boring. Even a rotation like the one of the Arcane Mage is made fun by good damage numbers and big crits - I'm in the mood for simple pleasure occasionally too and being able to switch from the more complex fire spec to a mindless, yet very rewarding spec of arcane can be very fun too sometimes. I've even come to really enjoy shadow priest dps. Even melee classes, which are the ones I usually have the most trouble enjoying, have their special areas which I love.

Shamans: I love that elemental shaman has become more complex, and they've always had some of the skills with the best feeling in the game. I just love to shoot off a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Thunderstorm. It feels -good-. Enhancement have a complex and fun rotation system which never gets boring. Resto shamans have one of my favoire healing skills ever - Chain Heal. I'd probably never tire of casting that.

Death Knights: Death Knight tanking is easy to learn yet probably the most challenging to master - I play my DK tank all the time and I still think I suck at it, and this is a good thing! Every time I tank I think I learn something new about how to manage my runes or when to best pop a cooldown. Speaking of cooldowns, dks have so many fun ones. Dk dps is similar to dk tanking in that the real challenge is learning how to best use those runes, there is a very big gap between a dk who knows this and one who doesn't - as it should be.

Druids: I love being a fat boomchicken, and balance druids have such a entertaining rotation at the moment. Switching between two "styles", either the faster smaller Wrath or the slower bigger Starfire. And I really notice the difference when I properly manage my Eclipses and when I don't. Resto druids have a very unique healing style with all their hots, and I love the feeling of truly being able to heal everywhere at the same time, the attention all those hots need from me to be properly managed. No other healer does this. I love the concept of shapeshifting and that whne playing a druid you have the potential to be any role you want.

Warrior: Warrior tanking just never goes dull, every single fight there are so many buttons to push, so many utility skills to use that it feels like I can treat every single pull completely differently if I like to. Warrior tanks truly have an ace up their sleeve for nearly every situation and there is no feeling like propely executing those skills and saving the day. Dps warriors have possibly the best melee "oomph" of all the melee classes. I love the splatty, splooshy sound all their skills make, it makes me completely forget whatever dps I'm really doing, because it feels like something gets hurt no matter what.

Mage: I really enjoy all the mage classes, frost and fire with all their procs to which you need to react accordingly to do the most damage and arcane that need that minute mana handling to be really, really good.

Warlock: I love that the warlock talent specs actually manage to be so very different from eachother, they are as close you can get to being a hybrid without actually being a hybrid. Affliction, Destruction and Demonology have nearly nothing in common in their rotation and playstyle except they all use Shadowbolts in varying degrees. The class offers a huge diversity while all the specs still manage to stay very true to the warlock idea, and all the specs are loads of fun to play!

Rogue: I love that the rogue has managed to keep its backstabbery, sneaky feeling, with lots of little utility (blind, lockpicking, sap, poisons). They're not the least similar to playing any of the other melee classes but have a very unique playstyle.

Priest: I love that you can switch between two very different heal styles when being priest that both offer a huge tool set of skills with something useful for just about any situation. Discipline has many different ways of being played within the spec (Atonement, SoS, ToT). I love that holy has the ability to focus on either aoe and single target healing (and only wish the feature be more pronounced). Shadow priests have an interesting reactive style of rotation and I love the fact that you can jump in and do some hobo-healing in a real pinch.

Hunter: I love that the hunter is such a forgiving class. If you just mindlessly press buttons you will still do a good job, but to truly master a hunter there is so much to learn. A really skillful hunter has loads of interesting skills at their disposal that when properly used definitely make a huge difference.

Paladin: Paladins have a huge set of utility and much like hunters they can be played leisurely or hardcore. If you're tired you can just log on and fool around and still do a good job. If you feel like it you've got a tool for every situation, the possibility to tweak and tinker every fight to turn the tide to your favor. I just love that paladins have so many cooldowns to manage.

The Raids
There is probably no fight in Cataclysm that I don't like. I enjoy all of them (although to varying degrees). Some fights are really unforgiving, some fights are doable even if someone messes up, most of them are quite varying (especially in Firelands) and offer a new way to play your character with each boss. Some focus on heavy healing/dps, some focus on micro management or a lot of moving around. Some focus more on environmental awareness and some more on playstyle awarenes. I love that most of the Firelands bosses require so much teamwork, I really feel like they managed to not make it the one man show of 10/25 people but that good communication does the trick (some of the t11 bosses did this too). The nerfs is another discussion, but just looking at fight mechanics I must say I'm really happy with Firelands, each boss feels fresh and interesting and most of them still require you to be on your toes even after having done them loads of times and after the nerfs.

Shannox: Feels like the perfect start boss. I think he gives you a good general idea about how the FL bosses work, with a good mix of simplicity and need for awareness and teamwork. The rest of the fights will generally require more of one or the other, and Shannox has a very good balance between challenge and ease.

Beth'tilac: I usually really like fights where you have to split the raid and each group has their task - Beth'tilac is no exception. It has a common theme of awareness in the first part of the fight and nuking in the second part, which in my opinion keeps the fight interesting throughout, but with two radically different ways of having to play.

Ryolith: A great example of when good teamwork pays off and a fight with lots to think about for most people involved. Everyone have their part that they need to take care of, no one is left out to just mindlessly dps/tank/heal.

Baleroc: I always love it when they try to implement healing-oriented fights, I really liked how Valithria worked. I like how Baleroc forces you to have great communication between yourself and the healers and dps for the shards.

Alysrazor: I like it that the fight focuses so much on awareness, it really puts a strain on you and I think it is one of the more difficult fights in the instance (at least pre-nerf). I love that it requires good healer/dps distribution because it makes me a feel a whole lot more useful when I know that this part totally depends on me doing a good job, because there is no one else there to do it for me.

Majordomo Staghelm: I find it funny that you can choose between doing it the fairly easy way or the very hard way, although I doubt anyone would intentionally choose to do it the hard way (our first kill was with several scorpid phases, and it was tough I tell you). In a sense this is a sort of relaxation before the big fight that is Ragnaros. I particularly enjoy the Searing Seeds, having to keep track of a debuff that has a unique timer for every single player is a really fun game mechanic.

Ragnaros: Raggie has so many things for you to think about, but I don't think they're as unforgiving as some were on Nefarian. You can survive a wave, you can survive a tick from an Engulfing Flame. I also like that Raggie seems to be approachable with slightly different tactics depending on your setup, there isn't necessarily a tactic that is the only way to do it (that's not to say there isn't a setup that is the best to have).

So you see, I can rant quite a lot about all the things I actually like as much as I can rant about the things I dislike. Most of the time we talk about everything we don't like because it's just more fun, for some reason. But I think I would love to read a post about why something is so enjoyable as much as I love to read the posts about why someone really dislikes something. I dare you to be happy.

Field Report - Undead No More

Some more random thoughts, but this time a little more priest oriented. How is my disc priest faring in the new world?

So... Did you change race yet?
Yes I have! I decided to go with goblin. It was a tough choice between troll and goblin, but in the end the goblin won out because I think 1% haste at all times will be slightly better than a use. Well maybe not. Actually it's about even, so I chose goblin because I haven't played one yet. Simple as that. You get access to your bank every 30 minutes, but I was a little sad that that didn't include the guild bank, that would've been truly awesome. So far I love my little goblin though, she suits me perfectly. Do I miss the undead? Hmm... I liked her, but one needs a little change now and then. I had played undead for several years now and I was ready for something else. I did miss WotF when people started ganking me though. I would've died anyway so that doesn't matter.

Ganked you say?
Yeah, the first thing that happens when I log onto my goblin, happy to try out her new emotes and all, I get ganked by some pvp-happy alliance priest. A couple of times actually. He was pvp specced so he was clearly eager to kill off easy targets like me. I don't even have dps skills on my bars, not counting smite. Suppose I get to suit myself. Actually I want to congratulate myself for not going into a rampaging nerdrage as I usually do when someone is grief-ganking me. Or ganking me at all. I don't mind world pvp at all, but I always hate it when people kill me while questing. I do not want to combine those two worlds! "But Zinn, why are you playing on a pvp server in that case? Doesn't that seem rather stupid?" you might ask. Well don't. It wasn't my choice. And I never redid that mistake again. But this time I wasn't angry actually. I knew I didn't stand a chance and I didn't bother much about being killed. Sure I would've liked to be able to just continue my questing, but I wasn't infuriated. Maybe tanking all those pugs really did do something.

So how is instance healing working for ya?
Well, I've healed a couple of instances so far, Blackrock Caverns, Stonecore and Throne of the Tides. And they're not easy. I oom every other pull, eventhough I'm not doing this with mindless random puggers but with careful guildies. Actually I noticed something really interesting - the higher my level gets, the more trouble I have with healing the instances. My stats drop significantly with each ding. I had 30% haste at level 80. Now at 83 I have 13%, with basically the same gear. Same goes with crit. I had 45% at 80, now I have 25%. This does make a difference to my healing, especially the haste. You know when you laugh at lowbie disc priests because their penance ticks so slow you could take a shower while waiting? Well, that's where I am right now. Evenso it seems like Heal and Greater Heal is the way to go when instance healing. People take big blows, but are starting to get enough hp for me to be able to throw big heals like Greater Heal. Wait did I say big heal? On some people my GH is like a piss in the ocean. I don't even want to mention Heal. You'd have to spam that like crazy to even notice you're healing the tank. My Heal heals for about 6k and my tank has about 80k.

So I have learned something very valuable. Don't throw your heals until you really have to. Except with Heal, you can throw that at any time. But with shields, pom, flash heals and all those expensive spells, you better wait. I can't put up renew/shields/pom prematurely anylonger. I'll only oom when I do! I can't put shields/renews on the entire party just for fun anymore, now I really have to decide whether my target needs the heal or if I should do something else. If someone hasn't taken much damage, maybe I should use a Heal instead of topping off with shield/renew? I've seriously had to change alot in my heal style, but - I don't mind! Actually I love the new healing, it's extremely challenging without being too difficult. I get that lovely kick when I pull of a nice stunt like saving the entire party from certain demise by using the correct set of skills during a fight. This is what I love about healing. Not to say we didn't have our fair share of wipes. The main reason not being lack of healing, but lack of mana.

I am very eager to see what raidhealing will be like. There is a big difference in instance healing and raid healing in that you either have all the responsibility, or you don't. I tried both disc healing and holy healing and was happy to note they both seem to do about equally good (bad? ^^). Ooming was just as much a problem as disc as with holy, and the encounters were about equally challenging in either spec. I also played around a little with chakra and was also happy to note that picking the right chakra stance for a fight actually was a tough choice. There is no best choice, the question comes down to whether you want strong hots or the awesome instant heal given by Holy Word: Heal. I more often chose the latter - you really want that instant heal as a holy. As disc I've got penance and shields, but as Holy you're in trouble when someone goes down really low. Everything screams in your head if you start casting something like Heal or Greater Heal, but if you're in the "wrong" stance there isn't much choice. I think the aoe-chakra will suit better in a raid, and the heal-chakra seemed to work better in instances.

The same gear you say? You haven't got to replace anything?
I said basically the same. I have been able to replace a couple of things. A ring and both of my trinkets actually. It is funny because I had fought so hard for my Althor's Abacus and I even wrote a post about it when I got it. And then I go and replace it with a quest green. But that's the way the world works, and I'd be rather sad if I had to use the exact same gear all 5 levels. Getting new cool gear is half the fun in WoW! Or maybe at least like one third of the fun...

And you're leveling as disc?
Yes, and it is working just fine thank you very much for asking. I don't die, thanks to the constant selfheal from Atonement, and I don't oom. Eventhough Archangel has been considerably nerfed (7,5k mana return to 2,5k mana return) it's still a nice boost to my mana every now and then. Like a little pot all the time. Sure, it's not the fastest way to kill stuff. But I am happy with four shotting stuff instead of two shotting them too.

Riiight...
Yes, it's true! I don't mind going about things slowly at all. It has given an interesting side effect however. Last expansion I was among the first to ding max level in my guild (which is now my ex guild). Like I've mentioned before, I was one of the people with the most spare time so eventhough I didn't power level or anything, that's just how it turned out. And since I was among the first at max level I was also among the first to do heroics and hang with the cool kids at endgame and all that, you know. Well not anymore. My guild has about 10+ people at max level already and they're happily doing heroic after another while I am still at 83. Am I bummed about this? Well a little perhaps. But I don't want to speed up my leveling process either. Right now I am writing this post instead of leveling, for example. And that is how I like it. I'd hate the day I do something in WoW that bores me just because. Or skip something outside of WoW that I like just because. So I will level slowly. And it's not like all those things won't be there for me when I turn 85 either.

Good for you, miss Optimism.
Yeah, but everything isn't all peachy though. I haven't got a clue about anything at endgame. Rep, gear, raids... all the things I probably should've started checking out already, and I don't have the faintest. Who to get rep with or even how. Yeah yeah, I know I can get some tabard, but I haven't bothered checking out which or where. I'm just not that hardcore! I will do my best and always come fully prepared to a raid, but in some cases I am really lazy. This is one of those cases. I can always rep later...

Ok, so what now?
Well, I'll just keep on leveling won't I? And then we'll see. I have no idea what my guild plans, when we're going to start raiding and all that. I know plenty of people are very eager to get realm firsts, and it would of course be loads of fun to try that out. I don't think it'll take me more than a couple more days to get to endgame, even with my slow style of leveling.

The secrets of Wailing Caverns

The secrets of Wailing Caverns are perhaps not so secret. The instance has existed since the dawn of WoW after all, so most people who've ever played a horde have come across most things Wailing Caverns has to offer. But they are at least many enough, and special enough to warrant their own post. A sort of tribute to a special instance, and also the first instance I came into contact with in WoW.

Waaaaay back, when I played my first char, Wailing Caverns introduced me to the concept of group-made-dungeons. My very first char was, coincidentally, a healing undead priest, just as the one I am playing now although they're not the same (I mained a druid and warlock short periods inbetween). It's funny, thinking back on it now, that I had picked the "right" class, race and spec for me right from the start! I don't think I actually ever entered Wailing Caverns on that char, but it offered my first opportunities at being in a group. And my first experiences at failing with a group. Back then grouping was considerably different. There was no lfg-tool, no summon stones and I don't even think there was something like an lfg-channel. I was happily running around Barrens with my priest when I saw someone advertising for a healer in the general chat in a message that has evolved suprisingly little since then - "Last spot for healer to Wailing Caverns". I didn't know what Wailing Caverns was, perhaps my brother explained to me that it was an instance, but I'm not sure I really understood the meaning of that. Now I had experience from dungeon crawling ala Diablo2, and maybe my first thoughts went there. "Hey I'm a healer" I thought and whispered the guy that I could join. I got an invite and started making my way there.

Back then the mobs outside of instances used to be elite. And when I got to the entrance of the cave I was encountered with elite mobs the same level as I, which I had no chance of killing. I'd probably had hell with just one of those, being a scrub healer and all, and I had to kill at least 15 to get all the way inside. Unfortunately the rest of the group had already started clearing their way inside while looking for a healer, and the mobs had started to respawn behind them. Just getting to the instance entrance used to be a group-effort in those days, so when I asked them to return to help me join them, they didn't enjoy the idea much. All my attempts to get into Wailing Caverns (some 3-4 perhaps) ended up in the same way. I joined a party, noticed they had already cleared the way inside, asked if they could come back for me, got a no and had to leave and go do other things.

After those failures I decided to play alliance with my brother instead (which is damn lucky, because that is where I met Love!). So I didn't get another shot at Wailing Caverns until many months later, because there were very few alliance who were willing to do the long, tedious run over there to do the long, tedious instance.

Speaking of dungeon crawling, instances like Wailing Caverns, who were Blizzards first attempts at dungeons in WoW, are probably the closest we'll come to the old Diablo2 like dungeon crawling style. The old instances in Vanilla are plagued (or so we think today) by difficult layouts and being extremely long. One has to remember that these instances were supposed to be exciting and adventurous, an epic venture! Now we just want to get them over with, but they were once supposed to be as intriguing as raid instances are today. We're talking about a time when there were no raid instances! Most old instances follow this recipe, they're long and often have several ways to complete. They don't follow a straight line, which might be a try from Blizzard at that "dungeon crawling" feeling. Instances have taken a different path since then, and become more and more straightforward. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, maybe dungeon crawling is best done alone. I do wish Blizzard would implement solo-instances like in Diablo though, that would be totally cool!

So Wailing Caverns is special to me in this way, but it is also special in a more general way. For some reason Blizzard has placed no less than three rare spawns in the vicinity of Wailing Caverns, that all have a high chance of blue drops. If one has the chance or plays a lowbie in the area, taking a peek over at Wailing Caverns to see if any of them are up could turn out to be quite profitable. Just today I found all three of the rare spawns on one of my druids! Only one of them dropped the blue though.

Gesharahan
Is a level 20 elite Hydra, located in the pool outside the entrance to the cave that leads to wailing Caverns. He has about 25% chance to drop Pulsating Hydra Heart, an off hand with 2 stamina and 6 spellpower worth  between 10-15g on AH. Being an elite, Gesharahan is rather tough for a player of the same level. He hits hard and has a rather annoying Deadly Poison which lasts for 1 minute (making it impossible to bandage for example), it should be avoided if possible.

Boahn
Is a level 17 Night Elf, located outside the actual entrance of Wailing Caverns, on the other side of the little pool. He has an approximately 40% chance to drop Boahn's Fang, a two-handed axe with 9 strength and 4 crit rating worth some 20-30g on AH (being among the best two-handed weapons for a warrior/shaman of that level who don't have access to BoA weapons. Boahn isn't too tricky in himself, he does have all the skills of the druids inside Wailing Caverns (he is in fact affiliated with the Druids of the Fang) - a sleep, a heal, lightning bolts and a serpent shapeshift. As long as he is in his humanoid form he will be a caster, but his most annoying skill is probably the heal which heals for almost all his hp, so if you can you might want to interrupt that. The trouble about Boahn is that there are alot of other mobs around him and if you're around the same level as he is, overpulling is quite likely to happen.

Trigore the Lasher
Is another hydra, level 17 located in the little pool just outside the instance entrance (not to be mistaken with Gesharahan!). Trigore has an approximately 30% chance to drop Serpent's Kiss, a one-handed axe with a chance on hit poison effect worht some 15-25g on AH. He has also a 70% chance to drop Runescale Girdle, a mail belt with 8 strength worth some 15-20g on AH (you get a better belt from the satchel at around this level, which makes this belt in less demand). Trigore is the easiest of these three, since he's non-elite, has no special abilites and is easily killed without pulling any extra mobs.

These rare mobs alone make it worth a detour for anyone in the area, especially a lowbie trying to make some extra cash. If you're a highbie you might also  be able to give the instance a run-through since there is something special to be found there as well. All the Deviate Guardian and Ravager raptor mobs of Wailing Caverns have a small (0,2%) chance to drop a vanity pet called Deviate Hatchling. Of course this is something that can drop at any time, also when people are doing this as regular lowbies. But since the pet is a white quality pet, it won't be rolled for and chances are high you won't even notice it dropped. My guess is that Blizzard implemented this pet since Deadmines has something similar in the Green Wing Macaw pet drop. But since the drop chance on the Deviate Hatchling is so extremely low, the prices on it generally are very high, ranging anything between 100-800g depending on whether you find the right buyer.

So there is much to be gained from a little venture to Wailing caverns!

Which was the first instance you ever encountered? What did you think of it?
Thanks to wowwiki for the pictures, I nearly died when last encountering these mobs and had no time to take screenshots!

Guide to surviving the random pug

Taking it out on an NPC could be a good way to release some anger

 When doing random pugs you often get the feeling that it might actually be bad to your health. I know I've had to calm myself several times to not go into a nervous breakdown (just today I was in the group with a rogue who ninja-pulled everything, nearly made us wipe and then left us with the words "Haha fucktards now I ninja everything!"). It has made me develop a set of tools to avoid getting into these nerdrages. Trying to think about these pointers doesn't always work, but it definitely helps. So here are some of my thoughts on how you can try to make the random pug a little less horrible.

Don't take every fight
If you, like me, like to talk too much, and especially argue way too much, you might think every statement made by a party member is an invitation to discuss. Rule #1 - they very rarely are. Unless you happen to agree with the person, let it go! Unless it's so ridiculous a statement that you just can't drop it, like something racist or the like, you don't have to start a debate right here and now. The random pug is definitely not the time and place to sort out the rights and wrongs about many things, and if the group is moving forward everything is working ok enough! In either way, you won't get the other guy to change his mind during this short period of a time anyway, so you might as well not get started at all.

An example: Yesterday I did a random run into SM Cath. The first thing the mage in the group says is "Oh great! Finally an aoe-tank", when she sees that we have a pala-tank. I was just about to open up Pandora's Box on her (it was a female char) on the fact that all tanks have good enough aoe-threat on low levels, that I personally actually think paladins have among the least good aoe-threat since it's so stationary bound and alot of other things. But I didn't. What would it have brought me? The mage wouldn't have agreed with me for sure, she clearly thought paladins were the best aoe-tanks, and why not let her think that? It was probably based on her experiences, and who am I to say those are wrong? Instead we started to casually talk about how hard it is to get a job nowadays, something everyone can agree on (unfortunately). So, pick your fights carefully when in a random pug. They're very rarely worth the trouble.

Be silent, or say something nice
Like my mom used to say - if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Like I mentioned in another post, there is a time and place for when you should and could tell people that they're not doing it right. Unless your group is having serious trouble getting the instance done, or the guy in question specifically asks for it, keep your good advice to yourself. Unfortunately very few people think you're doing them a favor by offering advice, they're just seeing you telling them they're bad. If you really feel it's needed, at least follow my steps in the abovementioned post! If you're going to comment on another player, try to find the good things. I usually always thank people when they do things people don't normally do - even if you might expect them to do that. Like say silence that nasty caster standing over there. Offhealing when the regular healer seems to have gone afk. Conjuring water. Not needing on those pants because they already had fairly good ones (ok, that's not going to happen). It's just as outside of WoW, you do want a thanks for doing something, even when you're supposed to do it! We don't have to go as far as "thanks for tanking" - that's just going to be interpreted as being sarcastic or smug. But giving someone a compliment is rarely wasted time. Saying someone sucks won't get you very much though. Remember the goal of you being here is getting the instance done after all - not getting the satisfaction of telling people off.

Assume people don't know, rather than don't care
When someone does something that really ticks you off, always presume they just don't know how to do it the right way. This too is something I've mentioned before. When someone does constant ninja-pulling, needs on everything, uses the wrong skills or just overall makes your life miserable, assume they haven't learned the right way to do it rather than that they're doing it to specifically to make you angry. Unless they're actually telling you so. One of my favorites is when someone in the group goes "Oh look how this guy is geared/gemmed/specced, let's kick him!". Like the gear/gem/spec was a personal insult. I agree in some cases it actually could be, but we've all been noobs sometimes, and we never suck at something to annoy someone else. If the necessity arises to tell someone they need to go about doing things differently if they ever intend to be able to play with other people, see abovementioned post for some pointers on how to proceed.

Don't take things personal, even when they're personal
This is similar to the previous pointer, but alot harder to do. This time I don't just mean that you shouldn't take bad playing personal, I mean you should try to not take personal remarks as personal. It's near to impossible, but probably the most important part in trying to keep things cool. When someone tells you you're doing it wrong don't become all defensive at once. I personally suck at not becoming defensive since I really suck at taking criticism. There are two ways people can tell you off (or give advice) and two (proper) ways for you to react.

Either they can just say "tank/healer/dps you suck". Unfortunately this isn't very constructive, and even more often not even very correct. The main reason the guy is telling you this probably is because you're not doing it the way he wants you to, simply. The best thing is to ignore this kind of comment. Sure you hate the guy who said it, but imagine him being a sad and lonely person who needs to tell people they suck so he won't feel so bad for himself and put him on /ignore and just continue on your way. If he really hates what you're doing he'll hopefully leave group. If he acts an idiot in other ways aka ruining the run, you might want to consider leaving the group. But don't take it personally.

Or they offer some honest advice. The other day when doing Saurfang on my hunter a guy in the raid whispered me some pointers on how to best handle the Beasts, for example. Instead of taking it as an insult to my intelligence, I was happy he wanted to share his experience on the matter to spare me the trial and error period.
To this you can either notice that you're actually learning something new and thank for the advice, or if you don't agree with the advice simply say so. "Thank you, but I don't agree :)". Or "Thank you, but I prefer it this way :)". Or "Thank you, but this works for now, I might change it later :)". Well you get the idea.

Realize the world doesn't center around you
As a tank I often do think the world centers around me. I still believe with the current shortage on tanks, and the way tanking works that they're doing most of the job, especially in lowbie instances where tanks often also provide half the groups damage. But for your own blood pressures sake, it's best to not try to always have it your way, or the high way. I've tried to play this way for years, and it just gets me angry. I used to be one of those tanks who just let people die if they pulled when I had said I was going to eat/check my addon/wait for the healer to get mana. If someone does that too many times I still might. Or maybe I want to take a certain path in the dungeon or skip a certain boss, and no one else agrees - well it is a group effort (even if you're 80% of the effort). Come to terms with the fact that you can't make people do exactly what you want, so you might as well not hope for it. And most importantly, not be angry about it. I could of course tell them to please do it the way I like - don't ninja pull, wait for me to get mana (when healing or dpsing) and the like. It works more often than you'd think, so it's definitely worth a try. But most of the time I just think "ok this is how it's going to be". I'm not saying it's easy, because it's not but try to suck it up and see it as a challenge instead.

So everytime you manage to get through the instance without too much emotional hurricanes, give yourself a gold star!

Some instances just bring out the worst in me

Since I do quite alot of randoms, sometimes I focus on lowbie instances and sometimes on heroics, I often get the feeling that some instances seem to promote bad behavior or bad playing more than others. I seem to get stuck with bad groups more often in some particular instances! Groups in which players don't seem to know what to do, wipe the group or just generally act like poosticks. It made me realize that there are some factors, qualities of an instance if you like, that contribute to these kind of problems arising.

First I thought - "ok, which are the instances I dislike the most?". I came up with WC, GR, BRD, LBRS, Oculus and PoS (I can imagine Scholo and Strat would suck pretty badly to do with a random pug, but I haven't been that unlucky fortunately). What do they have incommon? Quite alot it turns out.

Size matters
The most important factor to whether an instance is going to turn out good or bad is probably the length of the instance. For really short instances like SM GY (most of the SM instances actually), AN, VH, even Ramparts, things can go wrong as well, but since everyone knows they're close to the end they usually stick it out. And the shorter the instance the less things can go wrong. You're simply fighting less mobs and have to deal with less situations so this is completely logical. For the insanely long instances like WC and BRD, not only can alot of things go wrong, but people usually don't have the time or inclination to stay for the whole length. This means you'll repeatedly have to wait for replacements, which doesn't exactly promote a good mood.

The longer an instance is, the more likely it to be like a fricking maze. That means you might get lost, which will only make the instance take even longer and further increasing the chance of drop-outs. And if someone happens to die he might never find the way back. Which means you have to spend time guiding the lost player around, which in the end probably will turn out fruitless because he'll get so frustrated he leaves instead (or someone else in your group will). They really should implement a "teleport to instance guide" or even better "teleport to corpse" button. Because we all know the dungeon guide rarely knows his way around himself.

Umm, what do I do here?
Some instances, albeit relatively short, just rarely turn out well because they require more than the average performance from the group. Oculus is a good example of such an instance. It's not too long, and you can easily finish it in under 15 minutes. Well maybe not easily, and here is the problem. These instances often require the player to do something else than spam that aoe-button of theirs, and therefore makes it more likely that someone will screw up. In an instance like Oculus, one persons slip up could wipe the entire party, and unfortunately this happens more often than I find comfortable. It seems like because people are suddenly riding on a dragon instead of running on their own feet (paws, hooves) they totally forget about essential stuff like not aggroing random mobs when running around. And if one of your party members don't know how to use their dragon against Eregos, the entire party might die. The more people who have to take responsibility for the success of the group, the higher the chances the group will fail.

The perfect example is the difference between HoR and PoS. HoR is generally seen as the tougher instance. For some, namely the tank and healer, this instance is really difficult indeed. It does however hold very few surprises. It would make things easier if all the dps used utility tools like traps, fears and stuns but my experience say they'll very rarely do this. And it's not needed. You can't overpull in HoR and the tank and healer always know what they will have to handle from one second to the next.
PoS on the other hand offers plenty of opportunity for overpulls and people to wipe the group. I think since I started doing PoS I've always had someone pull the patrol in the beginning of the instance, for example. There is always someone in the group who forgets he is standing in the path of a patrol, or simply doesn't know. If people don't reset their stacks on Garfrost they'll most likely die, no matter how good the tank or healer happens to be. If someone accidentally pulls one extra group from those horrible packs of mobs just after Ick, it's almost surely a wipe. If someone doesn't stop dpsing when they're marked on Tyrannus, they might kill the tank. These are several factors (of which most have happened to me plenty of times) that contribute to making PoS more difficult than HoR. In HoR you can only fail if the tank doesn't tank, if the dps doesn't dps and if the healer doesn't heal. And that doesn't happen too often fortunately. Because HoR is so linear, it gives little room for mistakes. Giving people choices is what kills us.

Just imagine what would happen if you could be randomly pugged into instances like Magister's Terrace, where every pull has to be carefully orchestrated and crowd controlled? In wrath, and outside of pvp, when was the last time someone had to touch their cc button? The horror.

Actually I think the linearity of an instance is the key component to make it easy or difficult. The more surprise factors (aka overpull areas, standing in this shit will kill you), or choices (aka ways to go), the instances offers, the likelier something will screw up. This might sound obvious, but the problem seems to be that the difficulty level rises like the Richter scale. An instance with 3 surprise/choice factors is ten times more difficult than an instance with 2.

Sit back and relax, with a nice cup of tea (I really like japanese lime)

The next time you end up in an instance like one of the above, take a quick glance on your watch and your "patience-gauge". If you have enough time (for some of these instances at least an hour) and the patience to go through with it, it can be rewarding. I've done these instances with awesome groups, it's just very uncommon. If you don't have the patience and/or time, tell the group right away - "guys, let's do until X, but then I'll have to go". That way you and the rest of the group have a clear goal and won't waste time running around trying to figure out what to do, this is especially true for the endless instances BRD and BRS.

Maybe we need more patience

This is just awesome music, totally unrelated, to be enjoyed while reading this post.

When a child is old enough for school, or starts interacting with other children on the playground, people around it will immediately step in and tell it if it's out of line. "No, don't throw rocks at other people". "No, you can't just take that buggy, but if you ask nicely you might be allowed to borrow it". "No, you can't push people" and etc. This is how we learn what to and not to do against other people before we're smart enough to realize that we probably shouldn't do to other what we don't want others to do to us and all that. It takes people a long long time to put theirselves in other shoes and think "hey maybe I stepped out of line here". In fact most people will suck at this kind of thinking all their lives. But most of us have learned how to behave acceptable so that society doesn't cast us out.

Isn't it therefor interesting that when we come to another society, namely WoW, we don't do this at all? I often do random lowbie pugs and I am amazed at the behaviors some people have, just to realize that they probably haven't learned how to do it any other way. We have the people who need on everything, who ninja-pull everything, who go randomly afk all the time, who generally don't know what to do, who need on the wrong kind of items and so on and etc.

I often tell them, after having asked them to stop their misbehavior a couple of times, that "this might work for you now, but I assure you that if you don't try to cooperate further on, you won't get to experience end-game". Maybe they're not interested in that. Maybe a child isn't interested in being nice to people to be a part of society either. But we should at least give everyone a chance to learn the social codes of our society, so that when they get to 80 they know what to and not to do. Maybe the guy needing on all those greens actually thinks that is how you do it and then sits there like a questionmark when he is kicked out of the group. All the time. Ok so the guy isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but as we have noticed that is a common problem of WoWers, especially in the lower levels for some reason. Well actually it might be that most people have learned the social conduct rules of WoW by 80, and so they are perceived of as less misfits than the really odd lowbies you'll come upon in lowbie instances.

Why don't we step in and tell people what the right thing to do is? I usually give it a shot, but few other people I pug with do. They just expect people to know these things from start, and if they don't they're kicked. Not all of use come from heavy rpging either, and maybe if you've never touched a rpg in your life you won't know that Intellect generally is seen as a bad stat for a warrior. We might be shocked at some peoples behaviors, but before we assume the acting is to annoy is, we should at least give them the benefit of a doubt and treat them as the very new players they might be. I have touched upon this subject before, but it keeps coming back to me how difficult it seems to be for us veterans to imagine what it was like the first time we tried to understand an RPG, and all the things we've done wrong in WoW since we started out.

Maybe we need just a little more patience.

But of course, if you have tried to explain something and the behavior doesn't stop and/or keeps wiping the group, there is always the vote-to-kick. The game puts demands on people, and if you can't live up to them then maybe you should go do something else. Patience can only help you so far.

How do I improve your playing? Part 2

A friend of mine wanted to try tanking, he's got both a death knight and a warrior with which he could try it out. Problem is, he doesn't dare to. He's collected the gear and even specced the specs on occasion, but everytime he is going to press that "Join lfg"-button he bails out. He freaks. He's so afraid he'll fail and get flamed that he doesn't even try it once.

Something is very wrong in the world of newbie tanking. The expectations on the average tank is too high and the recognition too low. You get flamed if you do anything less than a perfect run. This isn't how it should be. My friend isn't an exception unfortunately, I know plenty of people who don't dare to try out new things in WoW. But tanking seems to be over represented in this category, by far. When I join lowbie random pugs I regularly hear the healer say that he's new to this and that we should think about that when doing the run. Nothing wrong with that, it's better he tells us now than after the wipe. But how often do you hear a dps say that? I wonder if I've ever heard a dps go "I'm new to this, any tip would be helpful". Funny thing is tanks rarely say this either. Why not? I can think of two reasons; 1) tanks only tank if they're skilled at it, no newbies there or 2) they're afraid of telling everyone about it. How many times haven't we heard about people who have done just this, telling people about their shortcomings in the hope that it will make them understand and go easy, just to realize that no one cares and now they have an incentive to call you noob even if you don't screw up? All too often unfortunately.

There's another side to it as well. Because you get flamed easily as a tank you also become really defensive and bitchy. You start to assume people will complain and think everyone are mindless apes. You want people to do things exactly your way or you start to nerdrage. You won't take shit from anyone and that leads to not even taking advice from anyone. People aren't very good at giving advice tho, it's often more criticism than constructiveness in all that caps you get thrown at you as a tank, so no wonder that you just close your ears to it all. Or even worse, stop tanking all together. What can we do about this?

It's time for a sunshine story in all this darkness.

The other day I was doing Sunken Temple on my shaman and we had a warrior tank who was... well let's say lacking in the tanking skills. He couldn't hold aggro for shit and was running around like a deranged hen trying to keep all the mobs on himself. Keyword here: trying. I noticed this and felt sorry for him. In his defense everyone in the group was higher leveled than him, the shadow priest who constantly pulled aggro even 6 levels above. We dpsers weren't really making it easy on him. Since 99% of all the pulls in ST are aoe-groups and everyone had more aggro than the tank I felt I had to do something.

I've given people plenty of advice, but giving someone in a random pug advice is something completely else to giving a friend or guildie advice. You're going to try to convince a guy who'm you've only just met, will play with for about 30 minutes and then probably never meet again, that he is doing something wrong and that you know how it could be done better. Not an easy task. I wrote a similar post on this last year. The differences between these posts is that the first one is aimed at helping someone you know, where I actually concluded that the best thing probably would be for people to be able to learn things in their own pace. But we all know WoW isn't so forgiving when it comes to random pugs.

Here are some key steps to follow if you want to try giving advice to someone in a random pug;

- Whisper the guy: No one wants announced publicly that you think they're doing something wrong. By whispering it's kept personal and felt less of an attack. After all you're not telling this guy just to show off your mad skills to everyone else in the group, but giving him a personal advice that none of the others will know anything about. This also prevents you being the inciter of a flame war in the group. If you give someone advice publicly, someone else in the group might think it's an invitation to start complaining which easily could derail into nothing useful.

- One advice at a time: Don't hand him the handbook on how to do it. Try to isolate certain issues and work with them step by step. Biggest issue first and so on. Don't spam the guy with whispers, he is trying to tank at the same time after all. Keep the whispers short and constructive - informative.

- Be polite: Most important. If you're not polite when talking to someone they won't even read what you're writing and you'll just be wasting time. Use alot of smileys, make completely sure that you're not trying to complain or be a besserwisser, but actually help.

- Relate: I always tell people that I used to suck too. It's true, we all have. No one ran into World of Warcraft knowing everything about it (I mean not even the designers do) and no one has played without doing a single mistake ever. Tell people that it is ok to do mistakes as long as they're interested in learning and becoming better - most people are if you go about it with the right approach.

There are some things that can screw this up;

- Communication: The tank doesn't speak english. Tough luck. Try to see if he speaks your native language (unless you're english speaking) otherwise there isn't much you can do really.

- Other people are being asshats at the same time: If other people are complaining and whining while you're trying to give modest advice the tank might just think you're all whining and not listen to any of you. This might also be true if the tank just came from a group filled with douchebags, which is difficult to know of course.

So how did it go with my Sunken Temple tank?
Step 1: After some pulls I noticed that the big problem was him just running in and hitting a mob to get some rage to thunder clap. That means he lost aggro on every other mob, since all the dps started aoeing at once of course. Without aggro and rage he had a really hard time getting aggro back to get rage to keep aggro and you know the deal. I whispered him and said; "If you start out with a thunder clap, you'll have all the initial aggro which will give you more rage to keep aggro :)". Note the important smiley in the end there!

Step 2: He answered that he had to build rage to do a thunder clap. If he had no aggro when running into the group he couldn't thunder clap from start. Quite true. He started stance dancing to charge in, thunder clap, switch to defensive stance and start tanking from there. He immediately tried to follow my advice the way he knew how. But stance dancing is tedious, I never do it. So I whispered him: "If you use Bloodrage before running into the group, you'll have rage enough to thunder clap from start :)".

Step 3: The tank stands still. Everyone is waiting. I'm thinking "is he searching for Bloodrage now? Maybe he's never used it? Maybe it's not even in his bars?". I whispered: "It should be in your spellbook if it's not in your bars". He answers "yeah looking now". So wait, very important here, I didn't answer by saying that he was a total noob for not knowing how important or useful this skill could be for tanking. That wouldn't have made him a better tank. At least he was looking for it now, he finds it and places it in his bars. We're progressing.

Step 4: The tank starts using Bloodrage before each pull, successfully thunder clapping from start and having a slightly easier time with the tanking. I notice that he waits for the Bloodrage cooldown before pulling, even though he has plenty of rage and whisper: "You only have to use it when you don't have any rage. Like now you have plenty of rage and you can just pull away".

Step 5: And so it went. I was lucky I know. The tank could communicate his problems to me and was interested in learning. He told me he sucked badly and I told him that considering the circumstances (everyone outleveling him) he wasn't doing a bad job. He didn't chain pull, he waited for mana, he pulled back when we asked him to etc.

This is really all it takes, some communication. Communication that isn't in caps and filled with leet-terms of unskillfulness. Imagine what advice you would like if you played an MMORPG for the first time, and in what way you would like it. It's not that difficult. At least it is worth a shot before the nerdraging and maybe we'll get another good tank into the lfg-pool.