Good ol' loot QQ and a rant

This post is actually me being a little whiny about loot. I dont usually get annoyed by loot distribution, it's just pixels, in a game but sometimes...sometimes I get annoyed with who gets the loot. If you get what I mean...anyways, I've been meaning to write about this but really didn't get it until yesterday.

If in a pug, all's fair in love and war. Rolls come and go, sometimes high, sometimes low. I can accept that pretty much. I have this little philosophy about loot - if it goes to someone who deserves it and is going to use that peice of loot to it's maximum potential, I have no problems with that. However, recently I've been losing a lot of loot and not to people who are going to use it as well as I am - A neck in a ICC10 pug on my rogue, lost. To someone who was in better gear than I am but pulling 2.5k less dps. A new sissy robe in a ToC25 pug on my mage, to someone who was below the tanks in damage AND dps - hopefully you can see what I'm getting at here, it's kinda a kick in the balls when you know that peice of loot is going to improve your dps but you're denied by a random number generater, which seems to (in my case) like folk that have been carried through content, dont have that much of a clue when it comes to their class dynamics and are just plain...bad. I cant be the only one, right? (If I am, please tell me and I'll attempt to stop being a dick :p)

Anyways, on to my rant. Which comes from the same ToC25 pug in which my 2 foot cannon was denied a nice, new sissy robe.

We'd just downed beasts, only just, the dps wasn't up to much. The tanks under-geared and paladin healer seemed to be healing the entire raid on his own. The raid leader then announced a "smoke break" for himself, the main tank, a healer and a rogue.

Excuse me, can you kill yourself on your own fucking time?

Smoking, in my opinion, is a filthy habbit. It's terrible, it's not big, it's not clever and you dont look sexy. At. ALL. And for myself and 21 other people to get held up for 3-5 minutes while you commit slow, slow, slow suicide using a cigarette? Well, that's just not on.

I took the time to get my, as Larisa would call it - favourite raid snack. Some blackcurrant juice. We killed Lord J after a few wipes and the actually kill... it was very close to a wipe. That 5 minutes had definintly unfocused our group. But I sacked it off and I got ready for a small wipefest on Champs, before the raid would eventually sink like the little fail boat it was.

"5 min smoke break" goes out in /rw. I kick off.

"Excuse me, can you kill yourself in your own time?"
"Is this your time?" the rogue answers.
"Yes, it is, as well as 21 other peoples."
"Well, tough." Rogue replies.

And they go afk. The following event, made me feel like I'd started a revolution. This was me, tearing down the metaphorical WoW Berlin Wall. I was like that guy in Cuba or something or other...

"Screw this guys, I've got the weekly done. I cant be bothered to have 20 minutes added on so people can smoke after every boss we kill." I said, in /ra.
"Me too" replies someone. Who then leaves.
Followed by another, then another, then another, then another. Quickly, the raid had actually disbanded to have what was 25 people turn into 14. Then 10, then 5. Myself and the smokers.

"Wtf?" the rogue says, as he comes back from suicide sticking
"I told you." I reply, before leaving the party and casting a portal. I then said in /s - "This is a no smoking portal, I'm sorry."

I'm that fucking cool.

Okay, you lost me.

The Deathbringer Saurfang fight confuses me. Well, the Horde side of it does. The Alliance side just has some terrible voice acting and a crying girl.

Basically, what I dont get is this - Saurfang (the older, not the one you're meant to fight) is hard as nails, right? He's so 'ard, his nightmares are scared of him. Thrall's pet name for him is "Mohammed-I'm 'ard-Bruce Lee." He's the cock of the Horde. How come, he gets so subdued so easily but a boss that's basically become a cake walk?

The /e of Saurfang charges made me think, the first time I did it anyway, that he was going to Cleave the undead right out of his son. I wouldn't have to do anything, wicked. But no. He gets choked, by some ability the Lich King has bestowed on Saurfang the Younger. The same ability he neglects to use against the 10 (or 25) people that then proceed to kill him, take his loot and let his daddy cry over his body.

This is one thing that has got to me over my time in Warcraft. The bad guys doing stuff to NPC's and completely leaving you alone.

Case 1
Saurfang vs. His Son - Choking ability, completely fucks up the Kor'kron and Saurfang for the entire fight. Does it get used on us? Nope. He calls some blood beasts and marks someone, that's about it.

Case 2
The Lich King vs. Trial of the Crusader - Seriously, the Lich King has had SO many chances to kill us, yet he doesn't. Trial of the Crusader? Arthas strolls in, doesn't touch the raid, that Argent Crusade paladin, the Alliance king or that really Angry Orc.

Case 3
The Lich King vs. Drakuru - We kill the evil troll (mon!) that has basically given Arthas a new army of undead voodoo. Instead of pwning us? He lets us live because he can find a use for us - yep, we can kill you and get a nice title and a really gay fountain in Dalaran.

Back on point to the Saurfang thing - I'm not asking for the boss to be undefeatable. That'd be pretty shit. I just think that fighting alongside Saurfang while he's trying to kill his own son would be 40 times more epic than letting him slowly choke to death. Imagine it...

Saurfang: Taunt him off me champions, he has weakened me!
Tank 1: Okay! *Taunts*
Tank 2: I'll go DPS then, shall I?
Saurfang: No! You are needed champion! Taunt him off Tank 1, for he is also weakened!
Tank 2: Oh! Right, yeah! *Taunt misses*
Saurfang: You dont have the taunt glyph? What the hell?! I cant work under these conditions! Fuckin' noobs!

That'd be well cooler than...

/e Saurfang gasps for breath and attempts to hide his Hangman's erection
Saurfang: Thanks...*splutters*...guys...would have been fight fucked if it wasn't for you!
Raid: It's okay, mind if we grab your sons worldly possessions to use as gear?
Saurfang: Sure, sure...
Raid: Thanks. Oh wait!
Saurfang: What?
Raid: Can we quickly screenshot this? Y'know, to show we killed him?
Saurfang: *Sighs* Be quick
Raid Leader: Okay, guys, get round his body. Rogue 1 - no gang signs!
Rogue 1: Awwwwh
Raid Leader: I'm kidding throw it up ther- Mage 1! Stop making dumbass faces, seriously!
Mage 1: Sorry!
Raid Leader: Okay on 3, everyone say "Saurfang's dead so-" TANK 1! Why do you have Saurfang the Younger posed like he's giving Tank 2 a blowj-
Saurfang: ENOUGH! Blah blah blah, honour, blah blah blah, remember, blah blah blah, regeants and repairs now available blah blah blah *cry*

But it isn't like that, so I'll have to make do and just get my 2 badges every week from a boss which will forever have me thinking two things, "Saurfang has gone soft with age" and "This is like Star Wars but...backwards."

On a lighter note...

After my post yesterday which was (unusual for my blog) quite doom and gloomy, I thought I'd lighten the mood with a massive...

FUCK. YOU. BLIZZARD. *Flips the bird*

Yesterday, I finally got my axe. After months of grinding for an axe, any axe, ANYTHING AT ALL. I finally get one. Oh and it equips across the back and is therefore, more awesome than any other axe. (I realise, I said "axe" a lot in this little paragraph but fuck it. Axe axe, axey AXE)

An axe, ZOMG!

"I'm a Lumber-Jakkru and I'm okay!" - Thanks Issy for the axe, brought a smile to my day when I logged in :D

So yes, I got my axe. My hunter has two of them (by the way Blizzard, thanks for that. Pricks) but this was more special, it was well and truely earnt and I had a good time, even if I did piss and moan about it, grinding instances for it. All I need now is new boots and I'll be the happiest rogue ever!

I Don't Feel Very Receptive Today

Ever had something happen in game that has actually made you angry? Actually angry, not the "RNG has fucked me over and I'm a little upset but oh well it's a game and I'll get over it li- Oh, look another raid!"

The stuff that actually makes you angry in this game are pretty much caused by one thing; the people playing the game. Today, I witnessed internet bullying.

Bullying is pretty close to my heart, seeing as I've been at the recieving end of it before. Not in a game but in real life. High school - it's a bastard of a place, a place where you start playing rugby and get massive, so that people dont pick on you anymore.

Anyway, I was doing the Random daily on my shaman. I'd finally got my elemental set to reasonable level (hit capped, good amount of crit/haste/sp etc) so I decided to wait an extra 15 minutes and queue as a dps instead of a healer. Our group consisted of a well gear tank, had around 51k after getting Kings, a well geared paladin healer, a (again, well geared) hunter, a DK and myself.

I dont bother inspecting people when I get into randoms anymore, there's no point. Most people are in decent gear and I dont mind carrying the ones that aren't but as we got through some trash mobs, it was apparent this DK didn't have the greatest gear, so I gave him a quick /inspect and saw he was in mainly starter tanking gear (y'know, the stuff you wear when you're starting to tank heroics). He wasn't doing much dps, seeing as his "tanking" gear wasn't up to scratch and he obviously didn't have a dps set yet.

This poor DK (who was from Crushridge and obviously had extremely limited English, due to fact he hardly talked and when he did, it was hard to understand what he was on about) was the target of the hatred of the paladin and hunter.

The paladin and hunter, were guilded together and after around 2 minutes it started.

"Omfg, look at his gear. What a noob!" the paladin states in /p.
"hahahaha, ye, noob!" the hunter retorts
The tank questions them, simply with a "?"
"that dk look at his gear, noob."
"I hate people like this," the paladin says "I hate carrying noobs through instances. Wasting my time, I'm going to let him die. Doesn't deserve to live."
"yeah, look at him, he's in tanking gear. too shit to tank so he comes and wastes our time as dps. fucking noob." the hunter says, piping up with his guild mate.

At this point, I'd had enough. I'm all about protecting the little guys, the ones that cant stick up for themselves. The DK had try to ask what was wrong, simply by going "what?" and "sorry, i dont understand. my english bad" and yet, they kept going, getting progressivly worse and worse.

"He's not a noob," I said, "he's being sensible. He'd waste more time tanking the place and dying than he is now. Get off his back"
"lol, stfu. he's wasting my time. dont heal him or ress him" the paladin replied.

I decided that it wasn't worth my time to argue with him, until it got worse.

"can you understand us, [DK name]?" the hunter asked
"ofc he cant, he's fucking foreign" the paladin said

I could see the direction it was going in. Racism. My most hated thing in the world after walking behind someone who's going so slow that they interupt your walking pace and you cant pass them. That and people who have no business in shorts.

"Guys, shut up. Stop being pricks. We're almost done and you can go back to being elitist pricks" I piped up.
"No, I'm sick of carrying these crushridge pricks, they dont even know english and they're all shit players, look at him, he's getting a free ride."
"I bet you were carried at some point," I pointed out "So leave off him, he's obviously just starting out.
"I dont care, he's wasting my time. I hate people that waste my time. Shitty foreign DK."
"hahahahaha" goes the little prick of a hunter.

I was reaching for the Vote to kick button, when I realised, it was definintly a Mexican Standoff situation. I voted him out, his guild mate voted me out and I've been jibbed out of 2 frost about a minute away from the last boss.

I decided to grit my teeth and bare it, I had no idea how to report someone cross server. So as soon as the last boss was dead, I had my frost badges, I laid into them both. I wasn't having this.

"You're an embarrassment to English people," I lashed, "and an embarrassment to your server and guild. You've spent 15 minutes bullying a person who doesn't have a clue what you're on about. You've been racist and complete pricks. How can you have such a problem with someone in a game?"

The reply? - "whatever, gay." and they left.

I sat at my laptop after I'd ported out back to the saftey of my own realm and just thought about what had happened and if I had ever been such a prick to someone - thankfully I couldn't think of a time I'd been like this, yeah, I might have commented on someone's gear but I usually always (if I can) give people some tips on ways to improve.

It was the first time I'd really seen this, I'd heard of people bullying others over the internet, or via text but I'd never seen it. I'm pretty sure it was made worse because the DK didn't understand. He might have understood a little but didn't have a clue how to reply to it. That would have been much worse.

People getting so angry at someone who was actually doing the right thing? I remember when first gearing my warrior for tanking. I tagged along with a guild member who needed badges for his retribution gear and needed nothing from heroics. I did shit dps but atleast I wasn't getting smacked upside the head, in nothing more than a paper bag with a little bit of defence on it.

I was more than likely being over protective as it's a subject close to heart but still, it made me think of the people that play this game. As soon as someone is behind a screen and there's no face to face confrontation, there's no stopping them. People who could be nice in the real world, are pricks to total strangers and openly racist infront of other people. People have been blogging recently on being Anoymous and Ercles has a post from a while a go about people being pricks when behind an avatar.

I got a little laugh at the end of it, after explaining it to a friend of mine on the alliance side, he simply went "little dicks, innit." Explains it all. The insecure wankers.

The Invasion of Argent Dawn, EU.

It's been a pretty wicked week, in terms of Warcraft.

Firstly, after wiping my group on Saurfang by accidently sending a whisper instead of casting Frost Nova. I decided to re-bind R (which is default to reply) onto Blink. So, as you might be able to guess, was a little silly. We're all buffed up infront of Marrowgar, I get a whisper, so I hit R. *Poof* my little 2 foot cannon goes. Straight into the room, pulling the 4 headed, axe whirling badass. What happens? He misses his first attack, gets charged by the tank and I live!

So if that wasn't cool enough, after the raid I logged onto the Horde side, catch up on the days events when I notice I have mail. It's from Tam's alt, Kumquat. It was an invitiation, which I quickly replied to by logging onto my long lost, yet very loved, warlock alt.

I was quickly invited to, Single Abstract Noun, a bloggers and blog readers guild which is situated on Argent Dawn (EU) and there's one knocking around over the pond too! It's a fantastic idea and anyone who keeps even the smallest little WoW blog, or reads a few when the servers are down for maintenance should definintly look it up. Great atmosphere to level in, /g never stops (I'm not even kidding...bloggers can TALK) and Chas's deaths never stop happening.

Introducing Darju! My level 41 warlock! There's his imp, looking in the wrong direction (pretty much sums him up in general, useless wanker...) and my awesome hat. The Tabard was designed by Tam - who's alt Kumquat likes Orange...just a little bit too much.

So yeah, my first impressions of the guild are wicked. We've got a wonderful mix of people, some bloggers, some blog readers. Male, female. European and even some token Americans/Canadians! Bloggers cant half mobilise. When called, or they see the special Blog-symbol (like the Bat-symbol but y'know, more awesome) they're there in a flash, armed to the teeth with conversation, witty character names and puns about Tauren.

Racials: Srs Bizniss

I've been getting a little bored of my warrior lately, so to inject some life into poor ol' Nalria I've been considering a faction or race change.So instead of dressing different races up in the gear she has, I've been looking at Racials.

First thing I saw - they've CHANGED. I have a troll hunter and was actually surprised to see Beserking was a flat haste buff and didn't scale with lost health. Quite frankly, I'm not impressed! If there was a stupidly annoying Facebook page called "The Change to the troll racial Beserking" I would not be a fan of it. I used to love my little dips in the fire™ to lower my health a bit before hitting Beserking. It was risky and if it paid off, you'd do more dps. My arrows would block out the sun they'd be going that fast. If it didn't pay off, you looked like a right fool infront of a pug or even worse, your fellow guildies! It fitted a Horde race aswell, you're backed into a corner. Maybe you've lost a limb (dont worry, it'll regenerate later - maybe even longer ;)), you're out numbered. What do you do? You turn green, nasty and start windmilling like a motherfucker.

I'd known about the change to the Orc racial back when it was made, mainly because I wasn't getting a debuff when I popped it. I wasn't impressed with that either - seeing as the racial fitted the Orc so well, especially as a warrior. You start swinging madly, taking no regard for your health but pwning extra hard? Yeah, that's proper Orcish. You can almost hear the "RUUUUUUUUUUUUUWR!" in the name - Blood Fury.

I certainly wasn't a fan of the Will of the Forsaken change - sharing cooldowns with trinkets? Screw you Blizzard.

Blood Elves get their silence/mana restoration thingy, which is pretty useful in OOM situations but I really do feel Taurens got the short end of the racial stick - 5% health is really useful, granted but going "Cow SMASH!" and being awesome at picking flowers? Not really that good. If any race deserves something that increases Strength or something, it's a massive, muscular freakin' cowmanbeast.

With thoughts of a faction change I started looking at the alliance Racials and it's pretty easy to see who Blizzards golden child is - Humans. They've got fucking everything! Racial which gets rid of movement imparing effects and fear and stuff? Check. Reputation bonuses? Check. Passive Stealth detection? Check. Increased Spirit? Check. And to cap it off, Expertise with not one but TWO weapons. Wankers.

Dwarves have that Stoneform, which is pretty nifty for a tank. Night elves have Shadowmeld and something that makes them harder to hit (okay, I kinda skipped over the nelf racials because I dont like them...) and Spacegoats are good with gems, have a little self heal and more importantly require 1% less hit, which is cool.

But then again, after all this, I'd decided that if I were to faction change. I'd be a dwarf, because they're awesome, their combat animations rock, they look good in most kinds of armour, they Riverdance, are about 4 feet tall and love to get drunk. The only down side is the terrible Scottish accents.

Looking back, I didn't really care about the racials at all. No one really does, except for the "elite." I always used to get asked - "Why didn't you roll and Orc or Troll rogue?" and my answer was simple - Undeads are cool, their combat animations rock and while you're running around getting feared in a raid, I'm stood there, hacking at whatever is in front of me.

A tale of Two Hunters, in which I am neither!

I've just finished a ToC10 pug, still aiming to get my shield on the shaman. Blizzard mocks me once again by dropping the axe. Wankers.

But that didn't phase me, because today I met a player who was genuinely skilled. He was a random hunter, in a guild that I cant pronounce. I'm gonna call him Mr.Neeson - because he has a certain set of skills.

He was the unconventional Beast Master specc. Which is renowned for being super for levelling but pretty terrible at end game (well not terrible but when compared with Survival or Marksmanship speccs in the same gear, it gets left eating their metaphorical dust).

There was another Random hunter in the group, who I'm going to Mr.Arrogant. He was in 3 parts T10 and thought he was gods gift to all things hunter. He was a cookie cutter Survival build.

The gear difference between the two hunters wasn't that much. Mr.Neeson was sporting 4 parts T9, some ICC10 epics and the 264 bow from ICC25. Mr.Arrogant as said before was in 3T10 and some ICC/ToC10 epics. Pretty even.

We had a wipe on beasts, our tank disconnected and the other tank ended up on 13 stacks. Not nice to heal. The second attempt was much better and what I saw was something very surprising, Mr.Neeson was pwning. I automatically thought "Mr.Arrogant is utterly terrible, getting beaten by a BM hunter..." but no, Mr.Arrogant was a close second, a few dps behind Mr.Neeson and around 1% damage. I was quite shocked, I was in a party with someone who was skilled...

Mr.Arrogant spotted this and asked - "lol, why you bm? go surv or mm and you'll do more dps." I had to stop myself pointing out that Mr.Neeson was beating Mr.Arrogant but the self-proclaimed gods gift to hunters had a valid point.

Now, this next bit. Made me smile as this is pretty much my view on the whole game.

Mr.Neesons response was simply "I like playing BM, it's more fun and I play for fun. I've been BM for a while and I've got good at it..."

Hats off to you! I used to love BM back in the old 1:1 or 3:2 macro days. Cooldown management, micro-managing your pet so it was alive on even some of the hardest bosses. Trying to keep your mana topped up without wasting a global cooldown and generally having tonnes of fun. I was miffed when they changed it a little and luckily on my Hunter I gave Survival a go and it was amazing fun and also good dps.

I started thinking about what Mr.Neeson said while I was spam healing on Twins and I had to admit, this game is definitly more fun when you're doing stuff the way you like to.

I'm pretty skint in game but that's because I dont do dailys or grind - why? Because it's too much like work. When I come in from a day of lectures, the last thing I want to do is spend an hour repeativly killing mobs. I'll more than likely sit in Dalaran and catch up on the days events with my guildies, run a few instances or generally mess around.

I was also thinking of the downside to this. Cookie cutter speccs are cookie cutter for a reason - they're good. They make raids better, progress further and therefore increase enjoyment. I suppose if you're playing the specc you like AND have the skills to pull it off, then it's fair do's but if everyone was playing the game how they wanted to, it could definintly get messy, especially with some of the speccs I've seen on some people...