Category Archives: Raiding

Busy, Busy, Busy

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Since the last post 5.2 has dropped and I’ve been busy with that, I’ve also been busy with a hell of a lot of raiding. I can now add to my T14 retrospective the seven fights that I hadn’t seen back then. We’ve also started on Throne and have got the first two bosses down, making progress on the third and it’s exciting, and really awesome, to be part of a proper progression team. I’ve also got into PvP a bit, my new raid leader likes to PvP and agreed to run some arenas with me for fun. I’ve never really done this before and it’s really nice to see another aspect of the game, it’s hard and we’re losing as much as we’re winning, but it takes practice.

The one downside, in fact the only downside that I can see, in Mists is that it’s such a time sink. I had been gearing my Brewmaster Monk up, and had got 5/6 MSV with it, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do all I want on my main and keep alts, or even one alt, well geared. My friends can do it, I know more than one person who has at least 3 alts 485+ ilevel and probably more. However, most of what they do in game is the gear treadmill. I find that quite repetitive and boring. I’ve never liked gear for itself, more for what it allows me to do, therefore the acquisition of it is a necessary evil rather than enjoyable in itself. Hence why I’ve decided to drop my alts. Oh I’ll still level them all to 90, and I’ll still play them (and therefore gear them slightly as a side effect) but I won’t play them to gear, I’ll play them just to have fun.

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The Missing Month

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I didn’t write a post at all in February, oh I attempted too, but I didn’t really have anything to say. Actually that’s not true, I had a lot to say but nothing I wanted to post. The guild I’d started just before Mists launched was in trouble, I desperately wanted to stay playing with my friends, but 5 people didn’t make a raid team, and trying and failing to recruit, and pug, and make progress, was killing me. We were going nowhere fast and I didn’t see a solution. I just wanted to play with my friends and for all of us to be happy, but it was looking like a pipedream. This was what was consuming me, when it came to the game this was all I could think about. I stopped doing pretty much everything else, but trying to raid, and worrying about the roster. My anxieties about it might have made words flow, but they didn’t make readable posts. Thankfully this problem is now in the past.

All five of us have joined another guild, this guild has sort of consumed my guild and another one, so three become one and hopefully that one will be all the stronger for it. I know people from both, have raided with these guys in the past, they are extremely nice and I’m really positive about the potential for the future. We get to stay together and we get to raid, and this is all in time for 5.2.

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Valor, LFR, 5.2 and the gear grind

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Yes finally another post, I really need to write these more regularly again. I had a couple of separate conversations with people recently, I told them what I’m pretty much going to write in this post. However, as I told them I thought “hey that would make a good post” so here it it.

LFR, has it’s fans and it’s critics. What is it’s place in the game? Valor, is it for raiders or non raiders? How soon is patch 5.2 going to drop and are we ready for it? Oh and gear, and more gear, it controls everything.

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Raid Lockouts

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This seems to be a never-ending argument and it’s something I’ve touched upon before. Every few months the debate is kickstarted by something, in this case by lockouts being separated on Korean realms, and 25 man getting better loot than 10 man. People are wondering whether this is a trial run before it’s brought back to NA/EU servers. After all that was the system in place in Wrath of the Lich King.

What people forget is that their opinion is biased, and I’m no exception to that. Even people who’ve raided both formats equally will like one or the other better, and that will bias their opinion. It’s a complex subject because due to personal experience everyone is convinced that they are right. The problem with that is that everyone’s personal experience is different.

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Lockouts and LFR

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about LFR and it’s place on the gearing ladder. Some progression raiders are unhappy that they feel forced to run LFR to remain competitive. The solution that they presented for this is for LFR to share a lockout with the regular raid. The blues have responded by trying to make LFR less attractive to run, without removing the possibility to run. LFR and lockouts are a contentious issue as everyone has their own opinion.

In addition to LFR problems lockouts have a problem of their own. It’s been a whole expansion now. since flexible lockouts were introduced. so I don’t hold out much hope of them fixing them. They are bugged or certainly don’t seem to work in the spirit that I thought they were intended.

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Shutting the door behind you

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There’s an expression in English which is basically when you’ve got to the top, rather than holding out a hand helping others up as you were helped, you shut the door behind you so you’re the last one that can get there. On the eu forums there’s a nearly 200 page thread and WoWInsider got in on the act as well. The topic? The age old argument of casual vs hardcore. Now I’ve covered this a bit before and said something similar to what the indomitable Matt Rossi said. We’re all different, and with a large player base we’re as different as can be. There is no one universal truth, everybody has their own truth influenced by their experiences, and so we’re all right and we’re all wrong.

However, if I was just going to rehash the ‘please can we all just get along’ this would be a very short post.

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Warcraft and difficulty

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This is an endless debate and the problem is no-one is wrong and no-one is right. It’s about how you feel and no-one can, or should, tell you that what you feel is wrong. If you think the game is too hard then it’s true, if you think it’s too easy then that’s also true. Whatever, someone thinks is their own personal truth. It also doesn’t matter why they think that, after all people’s views are usually shaped by circumstance and experience. The problem is some people are very vocal and this is a debate that the community as a whole is quite passionate about. It’s easy to feel ‘got at’ if you don’t agree with the game is so easy people, it’s easy to feel disgruntled and like no-one cares if you do think it’s easy. Everybody is right and everybody is wrong and that’s the true problem.

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Looking back at cata raids

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I seem to be pulling my inspiration from WoWInsider lately. They had a post that looked back at what were, in the writers opinion the best raid encounters in Cataclysm. As Cataclysm was the first expansion I saw from beginning to end, and properly began raiding in, it’s the first one that I can look back at from a raiding perspective. There are two ways to look at it, from an encounter perspective or from a sentimental perspective. Encounters that are awesome in their own right, might not necessarily have the personal memories, that make an encounter truly special.

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A playing revelation

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We’ve all heard about casual vs hardcore playstyles but I, like many I’d imagine, think that’s too simplistic. I’ve always said that I’m a casual player but I’ve recently had a bit of a revelation about that, which has prompted this post. It’s a bit of a personal post I suppose but I think it does have relevance enough to others, if only to make them think about their own playing preferences.

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