Loot distribution in WoW

This won't be yet another post about how players should distribute loot as equal as possible among themselves. That is an endless debate. It's a debate I enjoy having though, so I might well write some thoughts about it in the future, and I have written some about it before.

This post however will be about how Blizzard distributes loot among players. It seems Blizzard are more eager than ever that everyone, no matter how much playtime they've got on their hands or how skilled a player they are, are capable of getting a more than decent gear. I remember back in the old days in Vanilla when you had to do epics quests of eternal effort to get some proper gear or really put some time into raiding. Think about items like Anathema/Benediction or Lok'Delar/Rok'Delar. For both these quests you either needed the guild or the money to get some items, and alot of preparing and trial and erroring before getting your reward. No doing some heroics 10 times for a tier piece. But that was before, and things have changed greatly now. Except in one aspect.

The loot table of bosses is still completely random. This has always been an annoyance to players. Just imagine spending 50 hours in a raid (in total, not at once <.<) and never see the item you need drop? That is the beauty of "chance". Blizzard used a chance-drop-system for quest items before too, which instantly led to some quests taking up to an hour to complete, just because the damn item would never drop. Chance means that something could in theory never occur. It means you can kill a boss a trillion times without seeing something drop from it, if it has less than 100% chance. I bet the people who grind bosses for certain mounts know what I am talking about.

And somewhere deep inside of me I think Blizzard has kept the random chance drop loot table distribution because they want to make it more of a suspense whenever you down a boss. Or maybe they just don't want people to gear up too fast. No wait that can't be it, they're practically handing over loot for free to people nowadays.

But isn't it more of a huge anti-climax after finally downing that damn boss to see that it doesn't drop anything anyone needs? Everything has to be disenchanted, or go to offspecs at best. Wouldn't it be way more fun after a long struggle to kill a boss to see that someone in your raid also does a great upgrade? "Wow, grats man, that staff is awesome!" instead of "Oh great mail. Wait we have no hunter or shaman in the raid. ..."

Or having a great time in some heroic with some pug (it can happen) but only cloth drops and you have no clothies. Actually this system is especially annoying in heroics because I can imagine that Blizzard think that a raid can do what they want with the loot given to them i.e. give leather to a mail user if they like and so on. And there is nothing wrong with that. But there is no ML in a heroic and a mail user can't even roll need on leather, no matter how big an upgrade it is. This means that if it drops leather with no leather user to wear it, it is wasted. The mail user can roll greed and pray he wins. Or pray whoever else wins will trade it to him. Or pray that it won't be disenchanted. Has happened to me many times.

In any case it seems to be two ways of thinking (one of being able to freely chose among loot, and one of not being able to) that are greatly clashing with eachother.

I am not asking Blizzard to keep track of what gear or spec people have so that the bosses always will drop something that is a main-spec upgrade for at least someone in the raid. That would be going too far. But I am asking them to at least keep track of what classes there are in the raid. I would also politely ask them to make it so that there can't drop two items for the same class (double t10 on Toravon for the same class ftl...). I understand that back when the raids where 40 man large that having several items drop for the same class wouldn't have to be a bad thing. But in a 10man raid you rarely have more than two people of the same class (we've had 4 druids in our raids occasionally though... Damn druids are everywhere). I know that if one people is lucky enough to get 90% of all the loot he needs in a raid run it is uncomfortable both for himself and everyone else. Mostly himself though, dunno how many times I've heard people say "damn I feel like I am taking all the loot from people here".
I have benefited from the system as it is now but I still would prefer them to change it. At least look it over and give it some thought. Is random chance still really such a good idea?

Role-swapping in WoW

I often get to hear ideas for role-swapping in WoW and I generally encourage most kinds of experimenting in a WoW setting. That's one of the reasons I've written a post about warlock-tanking and expect to write more in that matter. There are however times when role-swapping isn't as good, usually in raids. The most recent idea I heard made me think about this phenomena overall and so I thought I'd write some of my thoughts on the matter.

This idea I heard about wasn't bad per se. Some guy had thought about speccing full Greater Heal to maybe turn a priest into an awesome tank-healer. Yes I've had this thought too. I've even gone so far as to actually try it out in a raid, and it does indeed work fairly well. So hey, let's go crazy with our specs! No, there is something that needs to be put into the calculation here. You are not the only healer in a raid (or at least you'll very rarely be).

The other healers in the raid have their roles to fill as well, and optimally you will complement their roles with your own. That way you won't have only healers who are good at say healing the raid and not tanks, or vice versa who are good at healing the tank but not the raid. Some classes don't have much options, paladins will for example never be good raid healers. Ok ok, wait a sec, maybe we have to take another step back at this and start at the way beginning.

Any healer can deal with most kinds of healing that occur in ICC, so when I say that a paladin won't be a good raid healer I don't mean they can't do it at all. Fortunately there are no bosses in ICC that heavily penalizes one type of healer, like Shirrak in AC. But ask anyone playing a certain class and they will tell you that they can handle one type of healing better than another. The paladin/shaman usually wants to stand still to spam their chain heals/flash of lights/holy lights/etc. The priest and druid is little more ok with running around. The druid generally doesn't like having to spam one target, since many of their spells are well used on many targets, same goes for priests. This doesn't in any way mean a paladin can't raid heal or a druid can't tank heal. They probably could do that pretty well, but their potential would be wasted.

And this is the point I'll stress here - potential. When experimenting with your role you have to take the potential of yourself and other classes around you into consideration. The same goes for some dps cases of course, you wouldn't want to have the rogue use Expose Armor if you've got a prot warrior using Sunder Armor. It is a waste of the rogues potential to have him waste combo points at something the warrior will do better/more easily.

And even though a priest might turn into a pretty good tank healer, there are already healers who do this job really well, but who can't in turn take the role the priest is leaving, that of a raid healer.

There is an old swedish saying that goes "Cobbler, stay at your last" or in modern english "do whatever you're best at". In real life I don't believe people should stay at one thing if they don't enjoy it, but in a game like WoW which basically revolves around numbers this will actually matter. Your and other players chars are only really a bunch of numbers standing against the computers numbers (npc). Therefore there will be an ultimate equation, one that is better than others.

Of course, role-swapping could be a great way to spice things up, like with lowbie-tanking and even in raids if your group think that the fights are way too easy anyway. Just remember that role-swapping has its time and place and that you've chosen your class for a reason - stick to it.

Earth Quakes make the world spin faster

In an article in the swedish news paper Dagens Nyheter (News of the Day) they've talked to some scientists at the Chalmers Institute about how huge earthquakes, like the one recently in Chile which measured 8,8 on the Richter scale, actually change the axis of the earth and thus the duration of the earth day. Of course we're not talking about anything that will ever be noticed by the lay human in thousands of years. Apparently the above mentioned earthquake had shifted the earth axis by approximately 8 cm and shortened the duration of the earth day by 1,2 millionth of a second. WHat happens is simply that the earth quake reorganizes the materia in the Earth to make it smaller or larger (mostly smaller), and this in turn makes Earth turn faster, just like if you spin and spread or pull in your arms.

Why even bother about measuring such small changes? It obviously won't turn into the Apocalypse for humanity any time soon. Apparently it matters when sending stuff, to date mostly satellites and probes, into space. Apparatus used in GPS systems use the parameters of Earth to tell people where they are, and even small differences can turn into huge errors back on Earth. Just imagine driving right into someones living room just because your GPS is misinformed by 8cm!

And for space probes that are sent off way into space, few milliseconds off in the Earth Axis data could turn into driving kilometers off once you reach Mars. What seems like small errors here on Earth will turn huge over the course of very long distances. Something quite worth to think about once we decide to colonize space.

I thought this was really interesting because I had never heard anything about earth quakes also having this huge impact on Earth, beside the already huge impact it has on human lifes wherever it occurs. These are changes on a cosmic scale! Once you know of it you realize that it is quite logical of course, just nothing you ever think about. Although earth quakes never happen in sweden (I do not count the occassional, lame shrugs that barely shakes a block of houses as real earth quakes) it makes you think about how things that happen anywhere on earth really affect everyone on it. You easily get the feeling that we're isolated from other countries just because we don't see them, and somehow I think it is important that we think "This affects me too" when distaster strikes on the other side of the Earth.

BoA gear for a tank

In my posts about how to level a warrior tank (most recent post here) I've mentioned the use of BoA gear. But I noticed I haven't actually said anything about which gear to use. And it might not be so strange, just use the tank ones of course! But it's not that easy, because there is no real BoA tankset out there. If you want BoA gear as a tank you have to settle for the second best option, the PvP gear. It is the only BoA gear which has any tanklike stat, and it is resilience. Resilience works like a lesser alternative to defense, but if there is no option resilience is quite good as a tank stat. It will lower the chance that mobs crit you, which is the most important aspect of being a tank, even when being a lowbie in my opinion. Although mobs only crit you about 5% of the time of their swings, one crit can do alot of damage. The difference between defense and resilience is that defense also increases your chance to block, dodge and parry and for the mob to miss you, while resilience only lowers the mob chance to crit you and the damage you take from dots.

Actually I find it weird that there's no proper tank gear to be had at lower levels. Considering that the shortage of tanks have been an issue since forever in WoW, one would think Blizzard would like to encourage people who level an alt to chose to do it as a tank by giving them some proper awesome tank gear for the job. The only reasons I see for them not doing this is either they think the resilience gear is enough, or they think you can tank well enough without tank gear at lower levels anyway. Although both these arguments are fairly true, to me it's a matter of principles. If they want people to tank, they should provide real tank gear. How come every other role gets a proper gear, and not this one? And as we will see there isn't even a complete set of resilience gear to get for a tank, as important gear pieces like chest is missing. And if you intend to be a druid tank, even more gear is missing.

In any case, resilience gear is what we've got to work with, so here it is. Everything listed here can be found at wowhead.com.

Shoulders: Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons, or of you're a druid Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders
Trinket: Inherited Insignia of the Horde
Gun: Upgraded Dwarven Hand Cannon (nothing for druids unfortunately)
Weapon: Sharpened Scarlet Kris (nothing for druids or paladins unfortunately)

As you can see there isn't much, and this is definitely something I would like to see Blizzard implement into the game. More power to the tanks!

Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others

I'm currently in a guild that tries to mix hard core-ness with casual-ness. That means we don't take any regard to someone's "skill" when inviting them into the guild and we don't demand of anyone to ever raid (or pvp). We don't have any demands on people in general, other than the basics, be nice.

However, we do raid. And we try to do it seriously. We have some raids with less restricitions as to skill and gear, but we do have progress raids where we try to chose the best players based on raid dynamics, skill and gear. These raids have demands, and there is some confusion as to where these demands come from.

A constant debate (argument more like) in our guild is to who "deserves" to be picked to our progress raids. What standards do we have and why? I notice that the people who aren't often picked to raids think that the raid leaders must have some personal grudge against them. This can be quite troublesome at times. But this kind of thinking is based on a common misconception and that is that everyone has the exact same requirements needed to complete a raid encounter, and any "sorting" is based solely on the personal preferences of the person who picks the raid.

I understand why people think this way, because it isn't uncommon (and it has happened to myself) that people aren't picked for something just because they're not friends enough with the raid leader. But in some guilds (like mine), and with some people, it amazes me that people honestly think that someone isn't picked for a raid mainly because the raid leader doesn't like them.

Even in really serious guilds I suppose the raid leader in fact has to pick people he doesn't like sometimes just because that player is better for the raid than some other player would've been. And this is exactly the issue. The players do not in any way decide the difficulties of a raid encounter. Blizzard has it solely on their hands which classes will end up being the best choice to complete a raid encounter. The only thing a player can change is what they end up doing with the class they have chosen, but if a class turns out to the lesser of two choices, it isn't the players fault, it is Blizzards fault.
Let's see if I can give an example.

On Sindragosa you get a debuff that will do damage to you (place a dot) whenever you cast a spell or do a skill. This debuff is placed on one melee, one dps caster and one healer every 30 seconds or so. If you're one of 3 healers there is 30% chance you'll get the debuff each time and so on. Now in our regular raid setup we usually only use one caster dps, a boomkin. The guy is a great player and has great gear, but on Sindragosa he will have the debuff 100% of the times just because he is the only one who can receive it. I don't know if this is intended or not but it happens. This means he will, despite of being a great player and having great gear, not be able to do much damage in that fight. His dps drops to below half of his normal output.

And now for the tricky part. Blizzard has put this mechanic into the fight, so there are only two things we as players can do about it - either we don't care and try to work around it, which in any case will gimp the raid total damage output. Or we (mostly he unfortunately) will bite the sour apple and take another player, someone who won't be effected by this horrible mechanic.

What we chose to do is based on one thing, and one thing only. Most people think the decision is based on whether we like this guy or not. But of course the decision will be based on whether we will complete the encounter or not. If we manage to complete even without his regular damage, then he might join as usual of course. But if we notice that there is no way for us to complete it with the current way of things... we have to either give up on the encounter forever (or till they decide to fix it) or replace him. This would have nothing to do with personal preferences. The boomkin at stake here would have -nothing- to gain from being able to join a raid which has no prospect whatsoever to complete an encounter with his presence.

This could of course happen to me, perhaps it would turn out that a priest healer just isn't good enough for a raid encounter and I have to be replaced. I have to turn my anger at Blizzard then for failing at designing raid encounters properly, not at the ones who are stuck with trying to do the best they can with the cards they're dealt by Blizzard.

If it was up to me (and anyone in my guild I am sure), everyone would be welcome to any raid encounter. Blizzard has decided that it can't be so. There is nothing we as players can do about it, except complain on the forums.

This is just an example, but it can be replicated for nearly any raid encounter. If you're turned down for something, take a moment to think about yourself. Is your gear good enough, is your experience about the encounter good enough, or your experience about raiding overall? If it isn't, what can you do to improve it? Like I mentioned here, many new players expect to get their gear and experience on expense of others who have spent countless hours gaining these. If you don't have the time to spend on learning new fights the hard way (i.e lots of wiping), then maybe you have accept that you won't be picked for the newer and harder fights at once.

And most importantly, you must come to terms with the times that Blizzard have decided that you're playing a class or spec that isn't suited for a special fight. Don't shoot the messenger.