So I heard the world went boom...

I step out for like, five minutes and look what happens:

This is the reason we can't have nice things.

So I'm back, hopefully, more posts coming soon.

What would you do? (a.k.a. am I an asshole?)

Story time boys and girls, gather round gather round:

Today I was propositioned by a guild mate to help him run all three of the new Icecrown heroics back to back, his intent of course to farm up some ilvl 232 gear that he was in need of as upgrades. I always encourage behavior of people trying to upgrade their gear, especially when it is available in heroics. We managed to round up a healer in the guild as well and decided that we would pug up the last two dps when we got no replies for such in the guild. Having a tank and healer we were queued up for Heroic Forge of Souls and we're on our way.

When we arrived in the instance, we saw our two other dps were Death Knights. Both of them were swinging around Edges of Ruin, so I thought this would be at least a solid run in terms of dps and clearing things out. Some of their gear was pvp variants, but I thought that shouldn't stop a DK from pulling at least 2k dps. When they asked at the beginning if we were going to do all three heroics I told them "that was plan."

About the third trash pull I noticed that we were going a bit slower than usual but thought nothing of it. By the time we were done with the last boss of the instance, I got a tip from the guildies with me that both the DK's were actually pulling less than 2k. Thats less than the damage I do when I'm tanking. Thinking nothing of it, I said "so vote kick them," in guild. Thinking that they would go swirling into the nether of some obscure server never to be heard from again, it was only after the first vote kick that my guildies and myself noticed both were actually from our server. When asked why they were kicked as we started to enter Pit of Saron, I gave the explanation of low dps to which I was responded to with hostility, boiling down to accusations of being an asshole.

I took a moment to think about it, and then responded in the middle of the tirade "what gives you the right to decide who gets to go?" with this: "After looking over the dps charts, it's my opinion that you both need either better gear from lower levels of heroics or a better understanding of your class before attempting some of the hardest heroics in game."

Of course the DK's weren't happy about my response and went on to insult me some more. After getting out the instance one of them apparently started to trash talk the guild, of which is primarily my fault, no doubt about that.

How could I have handled it better? Probably by giving them an explanation before vote kicking them, that occurs to me now.

Am I wrong for kicking them though? Does it make me an elitist asshole? Maybe a bit.

My point of view though: It should be possible for most, if not all classes in dps specs, to be able to pull 2k dps from just questing blues and crafted purples. I know blue posts have gone on to say that they feel 1.5k is about the average low end of dps looking to do heroics and that if they are below that then there is some misplaying or misgearing going on, but I truly feel 2k is obtainable, even for a fresh 80 DK.

If you've got an opinion on the issue dear reader (and I'm sure you do) now would be the PERFECT time to respond by leaving a comment at the end of this post! I value your feedback and like to know who's reading.

So, are my standards too high or would you have done the same?

Greatest Hits of 2009

Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope your Holiday season has gone well. Been touring around a bit, so far as Vegas!

Anyway, 2009 is over, but it's been quite the year for WoW! We've been given so much over this year, dwarfing probably more than any other year in the game's five year history. I've decided to countdown what have probably been the most influential changes to the game in a general sense. Of course a blog list will vary from your own opinions, but take a gander all the same

#10 Disenchant option in Dungeons

This probably seems like a small one to some people, but not having to determine who in a group is an enchanter and speed through the rolling process, not to mention not having to pass out shards in the end, just screams as a great time saver for 5 man groups. Very subtle but very cool.

#9 Revamped starting experience

If you haven't rolled a new toon recently (which I wouldn't blame most) let me just sum up that levels 1 to 20 are now easy mode, and thats not a bad thing at all! Making the game more attractive to new players is great for retaining new players. Having spells cost less mana, more appropriate starting weapons, super reduced chance to be dazed, it's all great stuff that will really start paying off when Cataclysm hits the shelves.

'cause we're all gonna try out a Worgen, don't even deny it.

#8 Turning off Experience

This is something a lot of Twinks have been asking forever! No longer do you have to worry about walking out of a town randomly, accidently gain level 20 for some reason and make your Shadowfang worthless. At the same time though, this is a bit of a double edged sword for twinks since experience-less toons now have a much increased chance to be matched against each other. So no, twinks won't be mowing down under-geared gnomes all day long now, but not pushing yourself out of your bracket after your all twinked out is more than an even trade. Being able to turn of xp if you like to quests with others is also kind of handy for group play. Really though, this change goes hand in hand with the next item on the list.

#7 Experience in Battlegrounds

There have been reports of people trying to level purely through PvP now, which is actually kind of viable. Questing around and queuing up for a BG while you do so is a good way to stay on your toes while leveling. Go in with a group and you increase your odds even more. Those with many alts that like to pvp will love this change. Try rolling around in a fresh 58 / 59 DK for some fun times.

#6 Normalization of Profession Bonuses

This is another sort of two-sided change that some people will take issue with. Those people are the ones that took Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting because it offered the largest stat gain of any profession combination, especially being able to gain extra socket bonuses you would normally pass up. For everyone else though, a sigh of relief washed through WoW, now knowing that the you would be gaining very similar buffs just by having 400 or so profession points in two professions. It's not quite perfect though, Master of Anatomy is still woefully under-powered, Lifeblood is great for grinding but situational at best in the endgame, and Toughness is just for Tanking, maybe PvP. Still, we're better off having some variety in crafters for the game as a whole.

#5 Gems for Honor, Badges for PvP

A nice little cross-game action with this one, Being able to redeem PvE currency for PvP rewards and vice versa has helped broaden the game on all fronts. Hardcore raiders now find themselves doing more Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds so they can get some Honor for gems, and now badges from heroics can go towards PvP gear for everyone. Another subtle but nice change.

#4 Earlier, Faster Mounts

Remember how big a milestone level 40 was? Getting your first mount and being able to move across the globe at something other than run speed was revolutionary for many and a matter of pride, if not a right of passage back in Vanilla and BC!

I don't miss those days though when I look at the system now. Being able to get your first mount at level 20 is just a much better idea! 20 is when you start having to get out of your predefined zones and start looking for adventure elsewhere, and being able to trot along the countryside makes such a difference when leveling. Epic at 40 and flying at 60 go right in line with the progression, but the increase to regular flight speed is probably what takes the cake for a lot of people. Not everyone has the time and devotion for epic flying (a real real shame) But 150% flying speed over the old 60% is a much better feeling so that you don't feel like your gibbing your land speed for the ability to go over obstacles.

#3 Revamped Badge System

We caught a gleaning of this on release with a two-tiered badge system that rewarded better gear for those that could find the people for 25's. Since then we've seen more tiers of badges added and heroics updated in order to provide gear for this behind the cutting edge raid curve or just getting alts leveled up. Many players cried fowl when this plan was released, claiming that it made the game easy mode and took away from the reward and stature of the "Hardcore Raider." In truth, it has redefined what can be considered a hardcore raider. Blizzard has said they want more people to see the endgame of content, and with this change everyone will get the option, even if they just have to keep plugging away at heroics. The difference now comes at the speed of which you finally get to take down that last antagonist at the end of his nefarious lair. If your hardcore, it may be a week or two with the release of the content. If your casual, it may be further down but it is possible!

Really though, if you define yourself into this "Hardcore" classification, you should be worrying less and less about people running dungeon for their Tier 10 and more concerned with how Heroic Deathbringer Saurfang is going to punch your face in.

Nice little rant there. These next two choices were tied in my mind, but I had to put one before the other, so here goes:

#2 Dual Specialization

It finally happened this year, something we've all been requesting for a very very long time got implemented and now we no longer have to click a little box 71 times for new talents, go through the additional trouble of re-glyphing, then reset your action bars and macros! So much time saved, its amazing really. Before being able to change with the click of a single button seems like the dark ages. Dual spec's are what caused me to switch my main role in raids from a DPS to a Tank. Being able to be a tank for heroics all the time has quickly allowed me to build up skills vital to be learned as a tank and take it on full-time. I'll admit though as soon as I got it for the first time, I almost instantly wanted triple-specialization. My healing as a Paladin is rusty, and the spell power plate just keeps dropping in excess for my raids =P

Well, if you've seen my second pick, you can probably guess my first pick.

I mean, I only talk about it all the time.

It's a revolutionary change to the game thats added so much value.

Well, without further ado, the greatest change to WoW this year was easily:

#1 Jousting

I think everyone can agree with me when I say that it was a fantastic idea by Blizzard to add a psuedo PvP option to PvE when they added the Jousting feature with Call of the Crusade in 3.2! And boy did they implement it into a lot of stuff for that patch! Lots of new dailies and a Boss in the 5 man EVERY SINGLE TIME! So you can enjoy the not-boring, not-tedious, and not-hated fighting craze thats sweeping the nation. And boy, do I see people using the Jousting-duel option all the time, for bragging rights or for settling tenuous socio-economic disputes in Great Britan. I can only hope we end up Jousting the Lich King himself!

. . .

. . .

. . .

Nah, I'm just yanking your chain =D

The Real #1: Revamped Looking for Group system

What can I say that hasn't been said already? It's a revolutionary change to the game thats made running dungeons more popular. And truly, dungeons are where WoW shines in terms of design. Being able to queue up without having to dig through various chat tells takes away so many headaches as the games pairing system is more than competent to build you a group. Rarely will you get an unworkable group or instance. More-so is that the function works so well while your leveling up a character. Being able to work on quests and have a dialog box pop up and port you straight end is so amazingly wonderful, and the teleport out option is also incredibly handy. While I do value Dual Spec's, how great this addition was caught so many off guard it just had to take my top spot!

Well, thats all I've got for tonight. I hope 2010 goes great for everyone and I hope to be writing well into Cataclysm. So I'll see you all in a random dungeon!

In-depth dungeon finder impressions

By far the biggest hit of the patch so far has been the new Random LFG system. It seems everybody has tried it at least once, and reactions to it have been mostly positive, especially in the speed that it takes to get a full group together. So kudo's to Blizzard to getting this system up and running.

I've used the tool to run my fair share of heroics since the patch release. I'm usually tanking at least once a day on my Paladin for Emblems of Frost, and then hopping around to my alt tanks and healer to build some Emblems of Frost for Primordial Saronite later. My experiences have been mostly positive on the whole, especially on my Paladin. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is due to the higher item-level of gear and getting matched up with other players of similar stature. Likewise, my Death Knight and Warrior tanks seem to get into groups with other players on the lower sides of gear scores, as they only adequately meet the requirements (at least in my eyes) to tank heroics. Many other players are also reporting these discrepancies in their pugs, citing super well-geared squads or dismal bands of destitutes. The system works well enough now, and while I suspect some players would cry fowl at the prospects of carrying lower-geared players, a better cross section of player gear would be better on the whole for the system.

Here's a bit of etiquette and tips when using the random-lfg:

-If you have friends or guildies that are willing to lend a helping hand, You may want to ask to bring them along before randoming the rest of your group. Especially if your gear is sub-par, having people sympathetic to your situation is better than invoking the ire of random people.

-Speaking of Ire, expect to hear some "colorful constructive criticism" when random'd up with people. Even if you know your doing your job right, some people can't resist ribbing others.

-If you haven't run at least all of the Lich King dungeons once (preferably on heroic) please do the rest of the game a favor and do not check yourself off as leader material. You do a great disservice to yourself and others by posting false claims of your knowledge.

-If you have no idea what is going on in an instance (shame on you for not even doing a little bit of reading), don't be afraid to ask! It's better to live humbly than to die ignorant.

-If your a hybrid class and are checked off as healing or tanking along with dps, expect to not be dpsing. You will however be rewarded with a quicker queue time.

-Remember to take any reagents or consumables you need into the instance with you. Players across servers can only trade items found inside the instance, so the studious Shadow Priest won't be able to trade water to the impromptu Resto Shaman.

-If you do forget to repair or bring liquids, don't forget that you can use the "eye" icon on your minimap to port back to town, and then again to get back to the dungeon. It will inconvenience your party, but not as much as your gear going red in the middle of Halls of Lightning.

-Achievements, especially those that don't make the fights easier, are better left to be achieved with a premade group if that is your prerogative. Ask if you'd like, but don't expect everyone to be happy to go out of their way and not take a red drake through Oculus.

-If you think the dungeon or a group isn't the best use of your time, don't be afraid to desert. While you do get a debuff keeping you out for 15 minutes, if you've got something better to do, the group will survive and find another person to fill your role.

These tips should hopefully help smooth out your pugging experience. Good luck in all your instanced endeavors!

If you got bug problems I feel bad for you son, I got 3.3 problems but a Lich ain't one

Alas, I can't take full credit for the awesome title of this post, that honor goes to Radioted, a reader and commenter over at WoW.com

So after much downtime of getting all the servers gussied up, 3.3 hit us, and in this bloggers opinion, it's actually been pretty smooth.

Far from perfect mind you, but still, most of the features are working as intended (or some semblance there-of) and that's saying a lot for patch day. I'll break down review of what I've tinkered with so far.

The most interesting part of the patch, in my humble opinion, is the new random LFG, which looks to be an invaluable tool in the future of the game. The instance server load for the night of a patch release was, of course, staggering, making our favorite "Additional instances cannot be launched at this time" message make it's triumphant return to the game. Hello loading screen that refuses to load, bane of my existence, unbeatable boss forever and ever. And hark, there was a multitude of forum goes, and their QQ's drowned the Blizzard page, salty words in a torrential downpour...

...ahem...

It's patch day, lots of people want to do the new stuff, and it looks like as the game goes on that you'll have an easier time getting groups. Anyways, the Random LFG seems to be working like a charm. After queueing yourself up for a random group, you get matched up EXTREMELY quickly, I'm talking like a couple seconds. Now, this may be because non-dps rolls are in high demand (healers and tanks) and that there are many hungry dps nipping at the heels of these rolls, so your milage may vary. Any of my toons marked up for a tank or healing roll along with dps checked off was always delegated to the non-dps roll.

Warping into dungeons is pretty darn cool once everybody is ready to go, and it really is super handy for those people who always forget to repair their gear or forgot their tanking belt (you know who you are). Of course, some of these pugs may be like the horror stories we've all heard before, alts coming out of the woodwork with sub-optimal gear. Blizz has stated so far that low gear scores will restrict you from accessing tougher heroics, and so far I haven't set foot in an instance yet where players were at least a majority of blues and epics, so it's been quite acceptable.

Of course, with pulling people from different servers that you may only communicate with with in just one dungeon, you increase anonymity, which on the internet translates into a greater likelihood that your group members will be dicks. If your fiddling around on alts, prepare for some colorful constructive criticism.

The new disenchant option on loot is a godsend. Does the DE for you and rolls out the shard if nobody has needed or greeded. Pretty fantastic.

As for the new 5 mans. I've managed to do two so far. Getting pulled in mid instance for the second one restricted my access to the third, though I've heard that I'm not missing much from an unfortunate server bug near the end of the Halls. From what I have done on heroic, these places are tough. Granted, they still don't quite hit the level of difficulty that Heroic Magister's Terrace had when it came out in BC (CC was an absolute MUST!), but they're a step up from Heroic ToC 5, which is all fine in my book. The bosses are epic with lots of abilities, the music is cool and moody, and the atmosphere feels just right.

Cross-faction mailing for heirloom items is also in effect. Haven't tried bags or gold yet, but it'll be next on the list. Rolling around in super high-damage gear at low levels never gets old to me. More-so, lower level characters are now much more resilient than they used to be. Chopping down the mana costs at low levels was a fantastic idea and makes the starting and learning experience much more smooth for new players. It also makes the game look more appealing as you'll rarely have to eat and drink before level 20. This could end up being a sort of double-edged sword though, as not conveying this information to new players early on may lead to neglect later in the game. The new tutorial system in game hopes to counteract this.

Well, thats all I got for my first round of 3.3. Hopefully some raid reflections will be coming up soon!

3.3 To-do list

Well, 3.3 is supposed to hit tomorrow (today?), so while your chilling out waiting for server's to get off maintenance, patching to go through, or servers to reset again, here's a quick list of things every player should do once we have the world stabilized and ready to enjoy:

-Respec! Before anything happens, make sure that your spec is up to date! Lots of changes to classes everywhere, so you may need to respec or get some exciting new glyphs. There's a lot of potential out there at the moment, Frost Mages getting perm Elementals, Affliction Locks returning to the top of the DPS charts, Unholy DK's supposedly having a workable scourge strike, things like that. Pallies, we more or less got some minor nerfs when it comes to pve (more survivability stuff for pvp apparently) so you might want to check your respecs as well.

-Conquer the new ICC 5-mans! Get an elite squadron of people you trust and clear out all three of the new instances. If you haven't seen the quests involved inside the triple-winged trial, let me just say that they're oozing with lore and dripping with epic loots! 219's for the regulars and 232's for the heroics, so if you aren't already geared to the 9's, there's something in there for you! Also, with the new random LFG system, you'll have these 3 open up as potential locations to get set into. Remember, the new Cross realm LFG doesn't take heroic lockouts for dungeons in account, so there's a chance that if you've already cleared it out with a group regularly, you can get again if the server-god's are looking kindly on you.

(Edit: It looks like some of the quests inside the new ICC 5's will be netting you some Emblem's of Frost! Huzzah!)

Speaking so much of the Random LFG

-Try the random LFG! This is going to serve as your new daily heroic, so you might as well get a feel for it early. Theoretically, in a perfect world, you should be able to log in, queue yourself up for a random dungeon, marking up whatever rolls you can fill, and in about the time it takes to get queued up for a BG, you should be knocking out whatever instance you've lucked into. If your wary your first time through, you can pick 3 people you trust on your server and let the service random up the last person. This will count to the daily reward of two Emblems of Frost! Doing more will also get you closer to a new pet if that's your collection addiction.

-Check out what the weekly raid is! This new system is going to be throwing you a random raid boss every week for a shot at getting 5 more Emblems of Frost along with 5 Emblems of Triumph. These bosses range to thinks like KT (who you can skip to directly now!) and XT-002, to some of the early ICC bosses. Plan and coordinate with people you trust, these bosses can be taken down on 10 or 25, whatever is most works best!

-Check out the new VOA boss! More badges and an early chance at Tier 10! Suggest you spread out the group as evenly as you can (or stack it so your the only one getting tier >_>)

-Finish your Rep grinds! If you've got any factions in Northrend that aren't revered or exalted yet, you can now buy rep tokens for the price of a single Emblem of Triumph! Better yet, shoulder enchants and head enchants are now BoA, meaning you can mail em off to alts!

speaking of BoA

-Roll an Alliance (or Horde)! If you haven't tried rolling around as an opposite faction yet, now is actually a great time to give it a shot! Bind on Account Heirloom items are now mailable cross-faction, so if you've saved up a ton of gear or badges, why not roll around and be op for a bit? I'll be messing around with an Alliance Shaman from time to time ^_^

-Get Quel'Delar! As quick as you can! Unless you were a top tiered raider and got yourself a weapon from ToGC 25, this quest has an upgrade for you (except for you tanks =P). Seriously, go get it, be pro and walk into ICC with an ilvl 251 weapon.

I mean it, do it, people will love you and it will rain money.

-Get a new Heirloom item! Don't forget about the new fishing derby on weekends! A chance at an heirloom ring being able to bring up your experience on alts to 25% with shoulders and chest is just nuts. If you managed to have recruit-a-friend going, it's going to be 375% extra experience. Jumpin'-Jehovah!

And of course, you've got the biggest baddest raid yet, with the expansions penultimate villain waiting for you...

Ain't no rest for the wicked

Happy post-thanksgiving to everyone, hope your turkey-day was good, let's get down to it.

MMO-Champion has graced us with even more information on the legendary Shadowmourne, check out this video on the weapon and it's effects:

Pretty spiffy effect, nice to let everybody know what your toting around, as if the BIG BLUE GLOWING AXE OF DOOM wasn't enough of a tip-off.

More interesting to those though who are waiting for their appetites to be sated by 3.3's release is the consolidation of information on the illustrious quest line to accompany chopper. As with any pre-release information on a site, it's subject to change, but we can go over it a bit. Those that were wondering what the price of entry on legendary piece of loot was, we've got answer of friendly reputation with the Ashen Verdict, 25 Primordial Saronite, and what they're reporting as quest items from Festergut and Rotface, the first two abomination bosses in the plague / unholy / construct / green wing of Icecrown. Of course it goes on to require more boss items from each of the end bosses of each wing, which limits the first possible siting of this beauty to the 3rd gate unlock. We also still don't have an exact spot of when we take up Shadow's Edge in our crusade to create this monster, which is a very formidable piece on it's own.

Might as well take a step back to mention that Icecrown is one of the greatest culminations of epic weapons to occur in the game. Public enemy number one holds Frostmourne, while the valiant verdict has employed the purified Ashbringer, and amongst the raiders we'll have Quel'Delar (a sister blade to Onyxia's Quel'Serrar) and soon Shadowmourne in the ranks as well. It's a lot for lore nerds to geek out about, and if your invested at all in the story, check out some of the links.

For those looking to get a head start on what's going to be the hardest raid this expansion, take a hop on over to TankSpot some time. Spiritus has been compiling guides for bosses tested on the PTR's and has some rough strategies for bosses that are worth taking a look at.

P.S. Good song