Descent into Shadow

Though it will be less epic than I would like, this post is about the shadow spec.  Which I have never been particularly interested in until I came upon a new guild which seemed perfect.  Except they did not need a holy priest. They needed a shadow priest.

So here we are ladies and gents.  My descent into the abyss.  My fall to the dark side.

But seriously, I am enjoying it a lot.  I leveled as disc and had every intention of only playing disc.  But at this point I am playing holy and shadow more often these days.  But enough chit-chat.

Shadow is similar to affliction warlock which I have played to some acclaim.  So I am comfortable with watching dot timers.  Everyone knows shadow priests get a big chunk of their damage from dots so you keep VT, SWP and DP up at all times.  Even to the point where you clip mind flay to keep it as close to 100% up time as possible.

But what I did not know was that mind flay is quite the trickster to get used to.  Not only do I have to watch for the ticks but I have to make sure if I am going to clip it I do so right AFTER a tick not before.  Hence getting maximum time from both spells.  It is pretty fun balancing this aspect of dps and watching boss timers and fire etc.

Shadow Tips I have learned:

• VT is extremely powerful and is worth clipping for. 
• DP also
• SWP is the weakest dot, but it buffs mind flay so keeping that up is paramount (albeit extremely easy)
• If you have to move, refresh dots and get a tick or two of mind flay if possible.
• Know when to Divine Hymn.  While your primary goal is of course to dps, if a healer dies and the boss is at 5% a Hymn could save the day.

Hah I found this picture and I enjoyed it, hopefully you will too :)

Cataclysm Talent Changes

On the same day Blizzard jumped the shark (I think I am using that phrase correctly, but who the hell knows) on the RealID business, they also announced a much better idea. Cutting the fat from all the talent trees and bringing them back to pre-Burning Crusade style with 31 point talents being the deepest one can spec.

Personally I love this idea. Love love love.  The trees were just starting to get so big and honestly, most of the choices were not choices at all.  So it just felt like blah blah of course I'm getting that +10% healing and -cast time on the spells I use.  The idea to pick a specialty and be locked into it is intriguing.  Some people think this is strange and not a good idea.

I disagree.  I think it makes the talents more exciting.  Especially a lower levels when it is pretty boring and it seems like you have one button to spam.  Makes new players feel more powerful right away which is great. Unfortunately the only info we have is that the talents are changing, but not how exactly.  We dont have any inkling on what they will look like besides the size.  So I will post another big article once they post.

Until then, sleep those sweet dreams of things to come.

PS: Of course they shut down the RealID forum changes. We all saw that coming. the almost 50k post thread made it pretty clear none wanted this change.

Obligatory "RealID is a bad idea" post

Blah blah personal information blah blah.  You know the drill.  Real ID on the forums is a terrible idea.  There are many other ways to make it un-anonymous.  Ask Facebook's little brother twitter.  Instead of giving First and Last name on forum posts, just require a handle to each account.  You can never change this and when you post it is always under this handle.  Problem solved, no private information divulged.  How hard was that Blizzard? Apparently Activision has a hand (or two hands) in this decision so the word is that most Blizzard employees are not happy about it.

The lull in the posts defending it by blues could mean a few things.  It could mean they are reconsidering the idea due to the outcry of the community (41k posts and counting) or they are just giving us a big middle finger.

Personally I never post on the forums anyway.  Its just as bad as any forum out there for information. Here is something really good on the 2100 page long thread about it, not sure who wrote this but it was quoted and Im not digging for the author:

Bobby Kotick spins in his chair "Welcome Young gamer, I have been expecting you. you no longer need those" 

Kotick gestures and the bindings over your keyboard fall off. 

Kotick says "game developers.. leave us." 

The developers leave the room. 

Kotick says "I am looking forward to completing the game testing, in time you will call me... game MASTER" 

You say "you're gravely mistaken, I won't be converted to facebook the way you turned my guild." 

Kotick says "Oh no my young gamer you will find it is YOU who are mistaken... about a great many things.." 

Ghostcrawler deeply says "His cata beta key" 

Ghostcrawler hands the beta key to Kotick. 

Kotick says "ahh yes, a gamer's weapon. Much like your guildies, by now you must know your guildies can never leave wow, so will it be with you" 

You say "You're wrong, soon my charecter will be gone and your game with me" 

Kotick laughs "Perhaps you're referrin to the emminent attack on our servers from our outraged fans? Yesss... I assure you, our servers are quite safe from their pitiful attempts" 

You speak "Your overconfidence is your weakness" 

Kotick turns "Your faith in blizzard is yours" 

Ghostcrawler deeply says "You should join facebook, it is pointless to resist.. my friend" 

Kotick says "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. You're friends over there posting on the forums are walking into a trap. As is anyone else who uses it. It was I who allowed the community to find out about the facebook integration early. It is quite safe from your... pitiful attempts to hack into it. An entire legion of the world's best hackerz would be needed to get in. Oh, i'm afraid the servers will be quite operational when the game goes live..." Kotick leans back and smiles. 

Everyone in the room looks over at the beta tester's playing the game. 

Kotick states "come boy, see for yourself. from here you will witness the final destruction of WoW, and the end of your insignificant guild" 

You look down at the beta key beside him. 

Kotick states "Oh you want this don't you?" 

Kotick carresses the beta key. 

He says "The envy is swelling in you now, take your beta key. Use it. That computer is unused. warn your guildies in game, give in to your anger. With each passing moment you become more my servant." 

You say "no..." 

Kotick leans forward "It is unavoidable. You, like your guildies... are now mine." 

He says "as you can see my young gamer, your guildies names are now mine. now witness the full hacking ability of this fully developed and operational battle.net system. Troll at will gamers!" 

One gamer stands up at a booth "This forums using my real name... the credit scam is operational!" 

Another gamer stands up at an adjacent booth "All gamer's prepare to cancel wow accounts!" 

Gamer 1 says "You may not get another chance to tell them what you think, this may be your only shot. We gotta give it more time" 

Gamer 2 yells "We have no choice! Blizzard cannot repel trolling of this magnitude!" 


Kotick looks back and chuckles before saying "Your game is lost. and your guildies info is now open. There is no escaping from facebook my young gamer. The WoW will die, and your guildies will leave." 

Kotick closes his eyes and uses the force. "Goood I can feel your anger. That pc is still unused, take the beta key. Plug it in and you're journey to battle-net will be complete." 

You look away, look back and snag the key only to find Ghostcrawler is now occupying the pc. 

Kotick laughs as you throw Ghostcrawler off the keyboard. 

He says "gooooooood let the desire to play flow through you." 

Ghostcrawler stands and calmly states "Nin-tendo Wii has taught you well." 

You say "Your thoughts betray you ghostcralwer, i feel the desire to save WoW, the conflict. 

Ghostcrawler says "there is no conflict" 

You respond "You couldn't bring yourself to ban me from the forums before and I don't think you will now" 

He says "You underestimate the power of the facebook deal, If you will not join then you will be banned!" 

He bans your pc but you manage to hide in another booth watching another tester play. 

He looks around the room to no avail before saying "You cannot hide forever gamer. Give yourself over to the battlenet, it is the only way to join your friends. Yes... your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong, especially for... sister... yesss you have a sisster that has facebook. Soooo you have a twin sister that uses facebook? Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Nin-tendo Wii was right to hide her from me. Now it's failure to entertain is complete. If you will not turn to the battlenet, then perhaps she will." 

You scream "NOOO!" before jumping up to fight Ghostcrawler for the last Pc beta spot. During the fight you manage to break his pc. 

Ghostcrawler moans "arrrggbh" 

Kotick chuckles "Gooood. Your desire to play has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny. Take his place as head developer at my side." 

You throw away the beta key and state "Never! I'll never turn from WoW! You failed your kotickness. I am a wow player, like my guildies before me." 

Kotick coldly looks at you and states... "So be it... gamer, if you will not be turned.. you will be destroyed!" Muzyka attacks and leaves you crippled from the tracing of IP on the the permaban. 

He says "young fool... only now at the end do you understand the power of the battlenet" He attacks again. "Your feeble WoW expansions are no match for the power of Activision. You will pay the price for your lack of vision. and now my young gamer... you will die" 

You writhe in pain "Ghostcrawlerrr pleeeease don't let him ruin wow!" You writhe in agony. 

Kotick says "and now young gamer, you will die!" Attacks with the finishin touches on the IP ban. 

You writhe and scream "GHOSTCRAWLER PLEEAASSE YOUR A GAMER YOU KNOW THIS IS WRONG STOP THIS AHHHHH" 

Ghostcrawler looks back and forth before picking up Kotick and throwing him into the WoW cata forums. Faintly, you both can hear Kotick screaming as he is harrassed to death. 

Ghostcrawler weakly falls over and feebily says "Gamer, tell your fellow gamers.. blizzard was saved" 

You respond "But Ghostcrawler, you'll be fired and banned?" 

He responds "Nothing can stop that now.. Just for once, let me be one of the gamers.. on my own terms..." 

You nod and stand up. 

He says "Now go... my gamer... leave me." 

You say "No Ghostcrawler you're coming with me I'll not leave you to be fired I've got to save you. 

He smiles "You already have, you were right about me. You already have. Tell your sister not to use battlenet.." 

A party is held in the gaming world for hours as music and celebration is infinite as blizzard is saved from the might of the evil empire. 

/que star wars end music.

Gearing/Gemming/Enchanting for PvE

Gearing and gemming for healing in PvE is not very complicated for a priest.

Holy

Gearing as Holy is pretty straight forward.  All the gear you will get will have Intellect and Stamina and Spellpower as base.  The variable stats are spirit, critical strike rating and haste rating.  All three of these stats are valuable to the Holy priest in the following ways:

Spirit

• Provides spellpower through Spiritual Guidance
• Provides mana regeneration through Meditation 

Critical Strike Rating (Crit)

• Provides extra free healing via critical heals (for 50% more healing)
• Provides mana regeneration through Holy Concentration.  This procs and lasts 8 seconds, providing 50% more mana regeneration based on spirit.  This has a cap on usefulness because you only need to crit every 8 seconds to be valuable

Haste Rating (Haste)

• Provides faster global cooldown (gcd) for more instant spells
• Provides faster casting for Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal

While all three stats are very useful, some are more useful than others depending on your current gear, the encounter and your raid makeup.  On the current content, I do not have mana issues.  Typically between Hymn of Hope and Shadowfeind my mana is not a problem.  I run with about 450 mp5, 17% crit and 20-25% haste (about 700 to 800 rating) completely un-buffed as Holy.

Spirit and crit both provide mana regeneration and throughput, whereas haste is a throughput stat.  That being said, haste is THE throughput stat.  More GCDs means more renews, quicker response to damage and a much easier time dealing with incoming damage.  Haste is easy to quantify on paper, but in practice, it is much more useful than it seems.  It gives you breathing room to do things like Hymn of Hope or re-position yourself because you know when you do get back to healing you can toss heals out that much faster.

Gearing is pretty simple for a Holy Priest:  Gem for spellpower in red slots and use hybrid gems for the other slots.  Spirit/SP in blue slots and Intellect/SP in yellow slots.  Depending on your current gear, you may be better off using full Intellect in yellow slots, but I would always advocate using hybrid gems.  They give better returns on spellpower (12 spellpower in a hybrid gem and 23 in a red gem) and if the socket bonus is anything, even 4 spirit or 4 haste, that is just icing because spellpower, spirit, intellect, haste and crit are all pretty even on usefulness.  I always gem for socket bonuses.

Enchanting is pretty boring, use all the spellpower enchants and for helm/shoulders its pretty much up to you which one you want to use (sp/crit or sp/mp5).  We run 3 healers in 10 mans so usually I err on the side of mp5 because I would rather be able to spam the whole fight than have a small chance to crit.

Discipline

My Disc parts are never going to be that exciting because I am raiding mostly Holy these days.  Also Disc is very similar in many ways so most of the options are the same.  The only thing I would change is that spirit is not as useful for disc.  I would use those int/stam/sp/crit/haste pieces over the spirit pieces for Disc.  Since I play both, I mix and match since it doesnt matter that much for Holy, but it does matter for Disc. 

If your job as Disc is to spam shields (If, Hah), then spellpower is the most useful stat.  Haste is also good, but with Borrowed Time, haste becomes much less useful.  It is still good for having fast GCDs but you arent casting many heals as disc, mostly Penance, shield, renew and ProM.  That being said, disc is probably going to gem all spellpower unless there is a significant spellpower bonus (6 or more) and it is a yellow slot and not a blue slot (since Disc is not spirit friendly).  Disc is very intellect friendly via Mental Strength so Luminous and Runed gems are your friend.  Save your one Blue socket for a high spellpower bonus.  If your job is to help tank heal and raid heal you may end up using a lot of Flash Heals.  In this case, you can use full Intellect gems which not only give you mp5 but also scale better due to Blessing of Kings + Mental Strength but also through Replenishment.

Again, enchanting all spellpower is most useful.  The reason spellpower is so useful is because shields cannot crit (spare the Glyph heal but that is usually only 2-3k) and are not affected by haste outside casting more shields.  Spirit is still useful because of Meditation, but that is the only use without Spiritual Guidance.

In summary, gearing for Disc/Holy in PvE is not very complicated.  For Holy stick with socket bonuses and mix and match crit/haste/spirit on gear depending on what the fights require.  For Disc, try to stick with SP for gemming and mix and match gear.  Crit and Haste may not be AS useful for disc, but they are MORE useful than spirit typically since used shields are free thanks to Rapture and even GIVE you mana if you have enough intellect.

Speccing in Wotlk

While I am about to write this, you and I both know that these talents are going to change in Cataclysm. However,  for the next 6 months-ish this information is still valid.

For priests the two healing specs are Holy and Discipline.  While my initial foray into healing was 100% Discipline, I have recently gotten on the Holy train and ridden that straight to Funky Town.  Funky in a good way.

My Holy spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZsEzcb0qihGhuAo:0Nf

The best thing about Holy is that while this spec works, this is not the only spec with which you can heal effectively.  Some priests swear by Serendipity specs.  Personally, I use so few Flash Heals and even fewer Prayer of Healing's (PoH) and Greater Heals (GH) that its basically 3 points down the toilet.  I would rather get Blessed Resilience or Test of Faith with the 3 points spent in Serendipity.  Both of these give passive healing benefits and are not something I have to keep track of like Serendipity.

Any talent that makes me better at what I am already doing is great in my book.  And what I do with this spec is basically use a rotation something like: Prayer of Mending->Circle of Healing->Renew->Flash Heal via Surge of Light.  I only run 10 man raids so we always have a holy paladin spamming the tanks.  Typically I keep a Renew on both tanks (or only one if only one tank takes damage at a time); then use the rotation above for raid healing.  There are a few caveats that make this rotation a little more complicated.

The first is that while ProM (As Prayer of Mending will be referred to from now on) is great healing per mana (HpM), if there is still one active and the raid is taking damage it is not mana efficient to just toss another one out and overwrite the previous. I keep track  of where my ProM is with Grid.  I am not a grid genius, so do not ask me any complicated questions :).  I will have a short grid discussion at the end.

The second is that one has to be careful using CoH (Circle).  While it is VERY mana efficient to use it on 6 people (or 5 without the glyph), you have to be careful on whom you are casting it.  For instance, on Festergut, you should never toss it on one of the ranged people, but you should ALWAYS cast it on the melee.

The third is that yes, this is a renew spam spec.  Empowered Renew + Glyph of Renew lead to some very hard-healing renews.  In ICC with the 25% buff, they can hit for 4500 at times.  Renew is typically 40%+ of my healing on raid damage fights.

The fourth and I believe final note I want to make on this spec is that Body and Soul is quite possibly the most interesting talent in the Holy tree.  As a holy priest in a 10 man guild, I do not have to worry about Weakened Soul being up, so I watch the raid for people who need some help moving. Just a few uses for BaS

• On Sindragosa for instance, I can save one person who is slow moving from the Blistering Cold.  
• On Dreamwalker I can save someone who is running from the exploding Zombie.  
• On Deathwhisper I can save someone who has a ghost chasing them.  

The list goes on and on.  I can understand not taking in a 25 man build because a disc priest is probably shield spamming, but in a 10 man raid, you absolutely need this talent.  It is too fun and too useful.

My Disc spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIoffRtcxtc:bAd

Unfortunately, Disc is not as exciting to spec as Holy because there are very few unnecessary talents.  I see some priests get Improved Flash Heal instead of Improved Renew which is definitely a good trade off.  Like I said I am not the tank healer in 10 mans; so as Disc I rarely flash heal.

My rotation depends greatly on the fight, but I am almost always Disc for LK and Holy for the rest.  Basically you keep ProM on cooldown just like Holy, but instead of renewing you put shields on the raid members taking damage.  Since you have no CoH, you can throw renews when people are still taking damage through a shield and have Weakened Soul.

Usually I save Penance for someone who has <50% health then follow it with a flash heal if needed.  Otherwise its shield+prom+renew on the raid for great justice.

For Priest specs that is pretty much all I can think of.  If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.

As for Grid, I keep a few different buffs/debuffs active on Grid.  I do not have a screenshot so here is a MS Paint picture of what my raid frames look like:

I know I know, my paint skills are the stuff of legend!

Now that you are done making fun of this I will explain what it shows:

•  "Holy" is the first 4 letters of the person's name.
• The red box is a placeholder for the boss's signature debuff.  e.g. Threat debuff on Deathwhisper
• The black circle of the shield indicator
• The green squiggly is the renew indicator
• The brown star on the top left is ProM indicator
• The yellow and brown block below the shield is the Weakened Soul indicator
• The blue bar at the bottom is the mana/rage/energy bar
• The -7.5k is the amount of damage that needs to be healed.  
• What isnt shown is the white background is white because I am a priest.  The area where the 7.5k is located is actually black back ground and white text showing the amount of damage (white for everyone not just priests).

This shows the information I need to make informed decisions about who to heal, what heal to use and what buffs I already have rolling.

Next post: A short primer on Gearing/gemming/enchanting

Future Updates

I have decided to change the blog up a bit.  Typically I have mixed blog posts on three topics:  General interest, like the most recent post, updates about every day activity in my life, and World of Warcraft musings.

What I realized thanks to an article I read is that while all three of these are interesting to me personally, there is most likely not anyone else who is interested in all three outside of me, myself and I.  Also I have Facebook for life updates and general knowledge musings right?

So effective immediately, I will only be posting about WoW-related topics.  More specifically, I will be posting about Priest pve and pvp strategies for the current raid tier.  I will include talents, healer rotations/priorities, gearing and strategies for encounters.

Not only will this give more focus to the blog, but hopefully it will end up being better because honing in on one topic leads to better articles I believe.  The first post I think I will do an overview of priest healing (I will touch on DPS a bit but I am not really going to worry so much about that now) gear, specs and future changes.

Why don't we like Soccer in America?

The FIFA World Cup is a huge deal.  Wikipedia says worldwide the sport of soccer brings in $400B every year.  Despite this, the sport is still not widely accepted in the US.  I hear about the games happening, but I could not care less about the results.  But for most of the world, this is the biggest sporting event of the year unless its a Summer Olympics year.

But why don't we like soccer?  Its a very physically demanding sport, as demanding and competitive as our football or baseball or basketball.  Even with that, it still has not become a mainstream sport in the US.  I understand why sports like fencing (which is my favorite sport of course) and cricket are not popular in the US.  Those two probably are not the best examples, because cricket is a lot like baseball from what I understand.  But Fencing is a understandably side-lined due to its archaic nature and even internationally it is not a big sport.

So what other reasons are there to dislike soccer?  I assumed the term soccer originated here since everywhere else calls it football and we already have a football.  It actually started in England as an abbreviation for "association."  But I digress.  It may seem like a strange reason, but I think it has to do with the number of goals earned per time spent.  Look at hockey.  It is another sport which is present in the US, but is not what I would call a mainstream sport.  Both sports are very similar in many respects.  There is a goalie and teams move back and forth between the goals attempting to score points.  Both typically have small scores.

This, I think is the root cause of why Americans are not excited by soccer.  I have no scientific evidence, but perhaps we do not like hockey or soccer as much as football, baseball or basketball because of the number of scores the teams of each sport score.  Sometimes baseball and football are low-scoring, but you will NEVER see a 21 to 10 score in a soccer game.  This is not terribly uncommon in baseball.  Football sometimes has low scores also, but again, scoring 50 points in football is not uncommon.

So this sport of soccer, while competitive, rough and exciting, is not widely accepted in our country.  The point I am making is that Americans are more likely to enjoy sports where scoring is often and expected. We expect instant and continual gratification. Also, baseball, football and basketball all go into overtime when there is a tie.  In soccer, you can tie and the game can be declared a draw.  I do not know all the rules for soccer, but I understand there can be a situation where a tie is broken, but it does not have to happen.  The rules I read say "a tie may end the game or an overtime may occur."  In baseball, games definitely can go on 10 extra innings if necessary to break that tie.

My hypothesis is that soccer cannot become a widely accepted American sport because we perceive it as not exciting due to the lack of goals.  Personally, watching hockey or soccer is like watching paint dry.  Back and forth back and forth almost goals but rarely a score.  I have never watched a soccer game, but I am trying to figure out why.  Ive seen baseball, football, tennis, hockey, fencing, volleyball, cricket, etc etc. We need this immediate gratification and ongoing scoring to be excited.  Sports are not about the competition or the game to us.  No matter how much we love the game of football, would you be stoked about a football game if a tie just ended the game?  Overtime is more exciting than the actual game!  We are about winning and losing and scoring big points.  What do you think?

A whole new world...

A new fantastic point of view! Noone to tell us no, or where OK OK OK. Just kidding. I am mostly writing about recent wow news today.  Hopefully enough interesting things will happen that I wont have to mention WoW too much in the future.

But seriously I found a guild to raid with on World of Warcraft. We only do 10 man content on main raid nights (though I imagine others run pug 25s). They are a laid back bunch of guys who have been playing together for a while. They invited me to their 10 man run last week and we did really really well. We made it to 9/12 heroic 10 man ICC in the first two nights and cleared Lich King, earning me "the Kingslayer" title on my second toon.

For about 3 months previous to this I had been raiding 25 mans with an old guild Exhumed, back on Argent Dawn. Schedule conflicts and my general lack of interest in 25 mans and Mage cut that short unfortunately. Good luck to them though, they are a good group. With the cataclysm changes to raiding only months away (wishful thinking eh), I really wanted to get into a group that I can grow with in the next expansion.

With that, as my new banner suggests: I am playing a new toon. By new I mean a character which until now I havent raided a whole lot with. I did a little Ulduar hard modes about a year ago, but after that this was my main pvp character earning rival in season 6 with very little experience (about 2150 in 2v2 after about a month after hitting 80) and even worse gear.

So right now I am plugging away at that ICC10 Frostwyrm. Very excited at the possibility of raiding with a solid group of 10 people.

Onto RL news: The house is going well. Jackie, I and her grandparents painted the living room. Its half green and half yellow. Not unlike a nice plate of peas and corn (good old dad taught me this delicious combo). They are not bright vibrant colors, but more mellow which I think is good for this room. This color scheme I believe will be emulated throughout the household. The bathrooms were already painted yellow and the guest-room green.

Work is going well. I wont get into too much of what I do (its confidential). But I help people with their problems. Its actually pretty rewarding (albeit sometimes mundane) when I can genuinely put someone's mind at ease with my expertise and knowledge. The worst part is when I know there is nothing I can do to help and the person on the other end just thinks I am the worst person in the world. I wish I could tell them:"It really gives me no satisfaction to be telling you this" but my psychology background and general knowledge tells me that would only fire them up more.

In other news: BP is still struggling with this Gulf of Mexico oil spill. I fear it will be one of the most devastating environmental catastrophes the world will ever see. Hopefully BP will turn this thing around and prevent it from happening again.

I try to watch the happening around the world at CNN, and it really keeps you informed on how BAD the weather is. Last year seemed like a HUGE year for earthquakes, but maybe its just because I didnt hear about the year before? That is actually exactly the case. This USGS table shows that there were more high rated earthquakes, but FAR less overall.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading. The word of the day is: parsimonious.

Updating

I almost forgot I had this blog! I recently purchased a house so my time has been mostly focussed on work, house, jackie and Wow. In that order? Maybe. So what I am thinking is I want to start posting again. Will follow up with more in the coming weeks. I will update the banner and perhaps attempt some intelligent posting. Who knows!

New job, new lots of stuff

Of course it's been a long time since I posted! Do I look like the type of person who does not keep his word? Apparently I do because I tell myself I am going to post more and I never do. It just slips my mind, forgive me. I am still working at the Zoo and enjoying it (I have read 3 books in the past 2 weeks at work alone). I was offered a job at a major credit card company in their call center which I happily accepted. It pays 50% more than the Zoo and has benefits etc, plus after a year there are lots of opportunities for career advancement. I am really excited to start working (This coming Tuesday my training for 11 weeks begins) at a real job. I still feel like I have never actually had a real job (no offense to people in food industry) until now.

My little kitten Bella just got spayed so she is being weird, but hopefully she will get back to her normal rambunctious self soon enough. I recently server transferred (and faction transferred) my rogue and priest to play with some college friends. My old server was getting pretty stale and lots of my buds had already left so I figured it was time to move on and get back in touch with some friends. I am enjoying it so far. Horde-side is not the rosy picture most alliance players picture it to be. There are still idiots on both teams obviously.

I guess you might be asking yourself what books I read recently? If that piqued your curiosity I will let you in on it. I read "The Shack," "Native Tongue," and "Redwall" (still working on this one actually). Three very different novels, but nonetheless I enjoyed all of them. They are all very worth your time.

Paladin Seal choice in 3.2

I have been testing a little bit with the different seals and I would like to share my thoughts. Whatever people may say about Blizzard and their treatment of the Paladin class, I think they have done something rather special with 3.2. I believe it is a very very good thing that people do not know which seal to use. If there were one obvious choice for every situation then why not just use that one seal? Why even pretend like X seal is useful if Y is better in every way?

Our seal choices (speaking only for ret of course, the other spec's choices are obvious) are as follows:

Righteousness (SoR)
Vengeance/Corruption (SoV because I am alliance)
Command (SoC)

Each of these gives the user a unique playstyle, however subtle the differences may be. They are present. Let us go through them one by one so not only to be thorough, but to allow each of them their due respect.

Righteousness has been the underdog since I can remember. It is the first seal you learn, but it is discarded rather quickly when you come upon SoC (though after this patch who knows). Personally, I enjoy this seal of alot for a few reasons.

1: The damage is consistent and it cannot be dodged/blocked/parried (in contrast with SoC).
2: You can glyph and talent for it (which opens up Unyielding faith in Holy. An AMAZING talent).
3: You can hard switch because the damage does not depend on a dot to be up (contrast with SoV)
4. The AoE damage is consistent because of #1 which makes this very useful for cleave comps.
5. The judgment damage is almost on par with SoV and way more than SoC

The downsides you might ask?
1: It cannot crit, which in pvp does not make much difference because its chance to crit would only be somewhere around 12-13% anyway so who cares?
2: You HAVE to glyph/talent for it. By doing so you are losing some of the deeper prot talents that are useful like 6% damage reduction, better shields + 40 second stun cooldown (instead of 60).

So this comparison has outlined some of the differences between the 3 seals so it is therefore not necessary to do this twice more. I will throw some more info out there that I did not mention above. SoC can crit, but as I said up there it can be blocked/dodged/parried. DKs have a lot of parry so I can forsee some frustration with that. SoV can be glyphed so as to give you 10 more expertise. Not bad at all when everyone in the game has 5% dodge and many have 5% parry as well. Gives an overall dmg boost to all your attacks.

On the subject of SoV, it warrants its own little section here. SoV does more damage on the seal and judgment plus it has a dot that is just icing on the cake. The downside of course is that it takes FIFTEEN seconds of face time with your target to get this damage to ramp up. That is a lifetime in pvp my friends. And with the amount of time I spend twiddling my thumbs while freedom is down, this will be very frustrating.

Another downside of SoV is that it does basically no aoe damage. SoR/SoC both proc no matter what debuffs are on the target, so when I divine storm a rogue and warrior who are on my partner I am doing 3-4k damage to them if nothing crits. When I use SoV that drops to 2-3k. That adds up overtime. Also, if you are using SoV then you are forced to stay on one target (unless you get peeled then you can try to stack another target) because switching back and forth will be tedius with the 15 second ramp up time.

So what is a person to do? I think the smart paladin's brain is whirring at this point trying to figure out a way in which to use these seals' weaknesses and strengths to his advantage. I know I am. My thoughts are thus: When the fight begins, use SoV to put pressure. When you see an opportunity for burst (say a druid pops out to cyclone you so you repentence him), swap to SoR (or SoC, have not decided which is better for this purpose) and stun + wings on him. This way you have the sustained damage of SoV for pressure plus you can swap and still do good burst when you need to.

So problem solved right? Yes and no. The good news is that speccing for SoR and SoV are the same thing (seals of the pure) and you can glyph for judgment which helps both (I had considrered glyphing for SoR, but this looks like a better alternative). The bad news is the same thing: You are speccing out of a LOT of stuns over time. In a 10 minute match, which is 600 seconds, the paladin with imp hammer of justice will get 15 stuns. What I am alluding to currently will only yield 10. That is FIFTY percent more stuns. That is awesome. BUT I think the 30% less time feared/disoriented will make up for the stuns. Fear is a terrible problem for me and It will be a dream come true to never sit in a 10 second fear again.

My conclusion is that the smart ret paladin (oxymoron? some would say) will use his arsenal of seals at his disposal and swap seals depending on the situation. Oh, another reason swapping with SoR is bad is that if they know what youre doing, changing seals could be a dead giveaway that you are switching.

SoV for sustained pressure, then SoR for some burst. That is all for now folks.

Patch 3.2

I have been trying to inject as little WoW talk into this blog as possible, but with the new patch today I could not resist. A new dungeon (or a slue of new dungeons more like it), lots of pvp changes, levelling becoming even EASIER (yay my dk will have a 150% flyer in northrend. itll be a joke to hit 80 now). Despite the fact that I have not been raiding for a while now due to scheduling conflicts, I am still really excited about the new dungeon and hopefully I will be able to find a raiding guild suitable to my needs.

This new patch changes a lot for paladins in pvp, and this is of most interest because my paladin is still my main pvp toon. My priest is a close 2nd, but I think I am most at home with paladin mechanics. That being said...they are throwing a wrench into my paladin mechanics:

Seal of the Martyr? Axed
Exorcism in pvp again? Yes, but theres a dark side.
Flash of light putting a hot up? Pro

The biggest change for me is that I have no idea what seal to use in pvp anymore. Command doesnt judge for anything at all (something like 1k?) and can be parried/blocked/etc. Vengeance requires a substantial ramp up time (15 secoonds? sigh), which means if I manage to stick someone who is planning to kite me (everyone), not only must I do this for 15 seconds, but if I get peeled for 10 seconds I have to start the whole process over again. Perhaps it wont be so bad because once I get vengeance stacking it will do massive damage? I dont know. I have not spent any time on the PTR to test.

Disc has been nerfed with the changes to penance (10s cd->12s cd), but I do not think that is such a big deal. A bigger deal is that mages and shadow priests now have a 20% mortal strike? Really? I am deathly afraid of mage/lock teams in 2v2 now because that is going to be a rediculous team. Shadow cleave in 3v3 will be a force to be reckoned with as well (spriest/lock/healer).

Only time will tell. Another cool change is that heroism and valor badges are gone, so I will be able to gear up new toons even easier doing heroics/naxx25 etc. Should be pretty cool. I am not sure how serious my DK will be, but when he hits 80 in a couple weeks (wishful thinking since I am moving in 2 weeks) I will be able to gear him to the teeth very easily.

Some RL news: Like I said just above Jackie and I are moving to Dublin on the 19th of August. That is the move-in date, but I am sure it is going to take us a week to get all our stuff out. This area is brimming with business so I am optimistic I will be able to find a job. The rent is more expensive so having an income is of paramount importance. That is all for now folks, I will write another entry in a couple days I expect. Cheerio.

The southern drawl

I would like to preface this with a disclaimer: All my friends and family who live down south should not take this post personally. I know that is asking a lot (and you will see why), but keep an open mind.

The other night I was walking home from the corner store after getting some milk (I drink so much milk that I have to go every few days and get a gallon) and it occurred to me that many people labor under the impression that having a southern drawl or accent makes you stupid. I do not disagree, but I would like to explain myself in that regard.

As you may know, I grew up in a small town in South Carolina (<3). Everyone around me (virtually of course, there are always exceptions) spoke with a southern accent. No surprise there, I hope. I, however, have always labored (mostly unconsciously, but I will get to that later) to suppress this accent. For one, it comes with a certain stigma of being unintelligent. As we all know, this is poppycock because there have been many great minds from the confederate states.

How does this all fit together to make something worthy of a blog post? I played devil's advocate when I was thinking about this assumption and said to myself: Ok, so southern people are stupid. If this is true, why do we think this and is there any truth in it? It is difficult to define intelligence of course, but I will leave it up to the reader to define it in their own words. I see intelligence as a multi-faceted quality which is honed throughout one's life and contains things such as knowledge (general and specific), reaction time, problem-solving, visualization (being able to rotate objects in your mind) and many many other things that are not really the point.

So southern people almost all have one thing in common: their accent. So maybe the southern stupidity hypothesis is explained by this (partly or wholly). But certainly we cannot judge someone based on their saying words slightly differently than other people right? Well, that is what I am here to address.

Whatever your stance on the topic, you will undoubtedly agree that some people think this is true. My thinking on this subject is that there are certain types of intelligence that some people just do not care about. One being social rules for conversation and speech. Do you stand up everytime a woman comes to join your dinner table? I doubt it, and I would never do that sort of thing, but some people see it as a courtesy due to women. Some people also believe that conversing in an articulate and courteous way is of utmost intelligence.

Ok ok, I see I am getting off on a tangent here. Are southern people stupid and is this because of their accent? I think, not all of them and yes, respectively. An accent is certainly something you can control (I am living proof, though I do slip into a different speech pattern when I am at home. A topic for another post), so with so much stigma around the accent, why not just pay attention to your speech and stop it? Most southerners do not realize they are speaking in this way, especially since everyone around them is doing the same.

So, why does this make them stupid? Language is our most valuable possession as humans. We can do things that no other species can. We can lie and cheat and swindle and hood-wink and all sorts of other terrible things that are impossible without detailed communication. Though many species do steal and lie, it is nowhere near as sophisticated. The point I am trying to get across is that language is of utmost importance when deciding how intelligent a species is. Language is the gateway to someone's thought processes.

If you know someone who is always saying like and uhm and thing in their speech, it means either they do not have much information about which they are speaking (or just dont put the mental strength into trying) or their brains just do not work fast enough. One measure of intelligence is processing speed. So since southern people slur words and push words together or create new words altogether, does this mean their brains work differently than other people's? My view on this matter is painfully obvious.

So what do you think? Is language a gateway to the inner workings of a person's brain, or is it just a random process that gives you no information at all? To me, I do not see how you could argue that language gives NO insight into how smart someone is. The fluidity and clarity with which you speak has great reprocussions on many aspects of one's life. If you cannot speak clearly, you cannot expect to ever get a job where one of your primary duties is to communicate information. Though as I said earlier, most people with accents do not realize they have accents. An accent is a deviation from the normal. If the normal IS the accent, then it technically is not an accent to them.

I will leave it off here, but feel free to comment or email me with reponses.

New Direction

Nothing much has changed since the last time I put up a blog post. It has become clear to me that even if (when) I get a job, I will not have enough material to post often enough and have it be interesting. So what I am going to do is write about random thoughts that come into mind. Some will be social commentary. Some will be random bemusings born from boredom (borndom, if you will). So here we go.

When it rains, it pours.

As you probably know, I have been job-hunting for about 3 or 4 months now. Previous to this week I have had one interview and a handful of emails requesting more information. Then I get a call two days ago for an interview. I would have said I did not do well, but I got a call back for a second interview which will basically be a whole work day where I see how the company works and if it will be a good fit. That last sentence looks like a run-on but we will table that for now. So I had the interview yesterday and on the way home I got a call from another company wanting me to come in and listen to a corporate overview and consider a position with them. Maybe it is coincidence or maybe it is the summer starting. Or maybe the economy is turning and people are hiring preemptively to keep up with the growth that is coming. Who knows. But I am optimistic because I know that I am a hard-worker and I can do either of these jobs. Anyway, just wanted to update. Wish me luck :).

Small update

As you can probably tell, it has been a while since my last post. I will not pretend that I have been slacking on posting due to be really busy. That would be a lie. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that I have not been posting because I have not been very busy at all. It makes for dull writing when there is nothing to say besides: still no job, wow going well, etc etc. I will try to tackle some social issues or something to make it more exciting in the future. In any case, I am posting today because I saw that a certain website that I frequent in looking for a writer. I applied, so wish me luck!

It is probably the sort of job that I should be doing. Talking about what I enjoy in a succinct and interesting for the readers sort of way. I try to keep this as professional as possible because I get all my LOLWUTSUPGAIS kicks from wow. Anyway, wish me luck!

Perhaps a new direction

Though it has only been a month and a half since I graduated college, I am starting to wonder if I should change my focus. Job-hunting has been less than easy. I am sure anyone looking for a job in this economy will agree with me when I say: It's rough out there. I am strongly considering going back to school in the fall (or winter most likely) to start studying forensic psychology. I am not a huge people-person so I think counseling psychology would not be the best field for me. There are a lot of branches in Psychology, but most of which will only lead to writing articles, research and teaching. Those are all great endeavors, and I do indeed hope to take part in them in the future, but I also would enjoy a career where I can apply psychological concepts in the pursuit of miscreants and criminals. This is of course not the only job a forensic psychologist does, but certainly a large part of it. They work closely with law enforcement to help profile and anticipate the actions of fugitives etc.

Anyway, I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say: Forensic Psychology is a terribly interesting field, which I am very interested in. So to that end, I am keeping my options open and am taking the GRE (graduate something examination) in order to get into a good graduate school. It is quite possible I would need a doctorate in order to pursue the type of career I have envisioned, but I will cross that bridge when it is presented. I am continuing to look for positions, hopefully one which I will be able to do while attending graduate school.

A quick snippet from my WoW life now. My guild finally got through the bugged Mimiron encounter (ironically, they fixed the first bug which only created a second bug in its place which has since been fixed as well *crosses fingers*). The next boss was not a pushover, but certainly not terribly difficult. On our first General Vezax kill, I plucked an amazing spear: Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned. Is it of course not the best weapon in the entire instance for me, but it is close enough. Plus, spear animations are really cool.

Anyway, we have been working on Yogg-saron; and are getting very close to a kill. Unfortunately, another guild managed to do what we could not last night and claimed the realm first. I am not discouraged, however, because I am still having a blast and realm first or not, it will be a great thrill when we take him down this week. On a side note, I seem to have stumbled upon some very good arena teams. I found a Restoration Shaman to play 2v2 with and it is goign swimmingly. We have played about 120 games together and are at 2003 rating. This is the highest I have ever played arena, but this is only the 2nd week of the season! I see great things in our future, of which I hope the Gladiator's Frostwyrm is one. I also was invited to a 3v3 team and we are at about 1840. The numbers are relative and the 3v3 is perhaps the higher ranked team at the moment. 3v3 is not my favorite because there is 50% more things to pay attention to compared to 2v2. 2v2 is usually slower and easier to keep up with. In 3v3 people just get blown up if youre not careful.

Anyway, that is all for now. I am going to get back to studying for the GRE. So far, it seems a lot like the SAT in that it is testing logic and critical thinking as opposed to actual knowledge. However it may sound, this is a good thing for me :). Not to say I lack knowledge, but I think I am more of a critical thinker and a logical person rather than a cold, hard facts memorizing person. See ya later, alligator (in a while, crocodile).

Oh the places you'll go...

I could not think of a title so that is the one I gave this article. I still have no managed to land a job, though I am sure there are many people who have been looking longer than I so I should not complain. In the meantime, I am still working part-time not nearly making enough money. Not much to say about the job hunt unfortunately. The one interview I had fell through unfortunately. It would have been an amazing job, but I was not the best candidate.

But life goes on. I am still applying to more positions daily in the research, human resources and other fields, but the people hiring are being very stingy with their pocket books. They will not just hire anyone, so I have to give a lot of information in my cover letter to ensure they know I am the perfect person for the job. Not to say I am lying or anything, but I feel that it is important to show that one's specific characteristics and skills can be applied to job X as well as job Y in a different capacity. I would say I am very good at making these applications, but that would imply that I got a job.

As you may or may not know, the new patch for World of Warcraft came out a week and a half ago and there have been some bugs. I have been having trouble logging into my characters (just one actually and conveniently its the one I want to play the most). This time has given me the opportunity to tidy the house and whatnot. I recently transferred servers to find a raiding guild that is more my style. I think I have found such a guild and I am enjoying raiding with them. Hopefully they will feel the same way. Its quite a gamble swapping servers and leaving your friends behind for a chance at a raid spot. Hopefully the will take this into consideration :).

We have been tearing through Ulduar right up until Mimiron. This is probably the first really difficult boss fight in Ulduar and I am glad they put it into the game. The problem is we are being (excuse my French) cock-blocked by this guy due to some strange bug (or is it?). He is supposed to spin around the room (Like Lurker if you recall from SSC) and shoot lasers (pewpew) at anyone in his path. They hit for 16k which is enough that you do not ever want to get hit by them. What seems to happen is that if one person gets hit by a laser, he does a little jig and shoots the rest of the raid. This happened on many many of our attempts. The only way we could figure out to stop it is to move very preemptively and stop all dps. We basically back off and put our hands in our pockets for the duration of the spin. It works, but people are still failing to silly things (myself included) like bombs or rockets or whatever.

To be fair to myself and my fellow raiders, this is one of the most demanding encounters as far as situational awareness goes, that I have ever seen. I saw all but 2 bosses in the previous expansion and none are as intense as this fight. You have to watch the ground for bombs (if you step in them its about half your health), the ground for rockets (which you have 3-4 seconds to get out of), the cast bar on the boss for an aoe insta kill, the middle of the boss for the spinny attack and the middle of the boss again for his small aoe abilities. Whew. It really may not sound like a lot. Glance at your feet, the boss, the middle and thats it right?

That is right I suppose, if all you ahve to do is sit there and do nothing but look. But you have to dps/heal/tank. This means your attention has to simultaneously be on your rotation, your feet, the enemy's cast bar and the middle section as well as listening on vent for instructions. Whoever says playing video games is easy and is just playing around has never played this game. Play a few arena games at high levels and you will understand that this game is more in depth than most people's lives. Mine included, excluding the happening in the game obviously.

So why, might you ask would you play a game like this which has no monetary reward (unless you arena in the tournaments) and in fact costs you money and time and massive attention? Because once you kill that boss for the first time and everyone yells in your ear and you get the achievement...its very difficult to explain, but the harder the boss, the better it feels. And thats what keeps me raiding and spending hours each week farming consumables and repair money and maxing out my professions and doing everything I can to increase the likelihood that we will kill a new boss.

So I am really tired and felt like ranting about wow and the job hunt etc. I will report back soon (with a Mimiron kill of course). Peace and chicken grease.

Patch 3.1, Ulduar, dual specs, too much!

I am overwhelmed by all the changes. Every time I log in, someone says: "Hey did you notice X or Y or Z?" And my response is always: WTF THAT IS AWESOME. Its quite a thrill to be playing WoW at this time. Despite the raid instances being down for 90% of our raid times, we at least got to kill the first boss on 25 and 10 man modes. Its a complete pushover and requires no strategy at all really. Run from the boss and shoot at it. Hopefully the servers will be cooperative soon and we will get to dive into the actual instance.

There are so many small things that get added that make you think "wow, how have we lived without this?!" which could mean a few different things. One is that Blizzard has a long list of things they know we would love, but only trickles them out to keep us playing. This is called marketing and its a good way to make money. Another reason could mean the Blizzard developers actually play the game and figure out creative ways to make the game more engaging and interesting.

One of the big additions in 3.1 is the Argent Tournament. Finally, a daily hub! The dailies are not super fun, but they yield very cool rewards (mounts/pets/tabards/etc) if you put in the time. I calculated it will take 5 months of dailies once you hit champion (which takes about 2 weeks to get) to get all the rewards. This seems excessive, but it will probably be enough time to clear ulduar and be getting ready for the next big patch.

Another is the improvements to the LFG interface. I am not an advocate of pugging instances, but if I were to do so, I would be a lot happier with the current interface. It allows you to specify your role (or roles) so it is much easier to gauge what sort of group you could get instead of trying to decipher comments like: KIN HEAL ORE TANK LOL.

So there are new dailies, a new instance, dual spec, new/streamlined talents and all sorts of new things to collect. Its an exciting time to be playing World of Warcraft, but it would be much moreso if the instance servers did not crap out at 9pm every night on the dot.

Some 3.1 thoughts

For those of you who are World of Warcraft players AND not living under a rock (which ironically some would say all WoW players do, but thats another article), you are aware that a huge patch is incoming. 3.1 will bring lots of changes to lots of classes. My own class/spec (Ret Paladin) is getting all sorts of changes which will change my playstyle quite a bit. My gearing will change completely (sort of) and I have a new rotation to learn as well as a new skill to weave into said rotation. It is very exciting for us paladins, in good ways and bad. Paladin changes aside, the game itself is going to change a lot because Blizzard's new raid progression plans for WotLK will come into play. Naxx and sarth were a joke of course and Malygos was tricky for a few weeks, but nothing was too difficult. Sarth +3 drakes was cleared in mere days or a couple weeks by the best players in the world. This is to be expected of course, while some pugs still wipe in Naxx 10/25 weekly.

This brings me to my point. Blizzard wants players to progress through raids, much the way you progress through jobs. You start out entry level and get promoted based on experience (quite literally in WoW while youre levelling at least) and achievements (again, puns but hilariously relevant) you obtain while working in a given position. My guild cleared naxx10/25 and sarth+0 within a week of Wrath. We were all-stars of the mail room. The big boss noticed and a few months down the road he gave us a new uniform (best in slot everywhere to be seen) and promoted us to Privates in the Ulduar assault squad.

I, for one, am excited about the prospect of wiping on new bosses. All the new paladin changes have ironically made me want to stay in Naxx for a few weeks to clean up some unfinished business with the terrible loot gods. Blizzard has decided that we should not be farming Karaxxramas forever. I agree with this. I hated that I had to farm heroics (even new and exciting ones) or Karazhan for a year because they kept giving us new badge gear. Cant get into 25 man raids? No problem, just run that easy instance youve cleared 18 times. Cant get into t6 raids? NP NP, hit up that heroic MgT. You get t5 level gear + badges for t6.

This was rediculous to me. I appreciate that Blizzard does not want this. I agree and I think its a great change. I am, however, worried that Ulduar will not be as accessible as they think it will be. I have no doubt I will be clearing Ulduar within a few weeks, then moving onto hard modes soon thereafter. My guild rocks and Im not humble about it because theres no need. There are so many guilds better than us, but we raid less than them so we have a good excuse.

I seem to be rambling, but who cares right? Blizzard wants us to time out of instances and move forward. I have a few theories about what will happen when ulduar drops. The first of which is that every Tom, Dick and Harry will think their naxx10/blue gear will be enough for Ulduar non-hard modes. If this is true then Blizzard has failed. If not, then they need to get more gear from 25 mans, but this too seems like a failure. Blizzard wants people to be able to only do 10 mans if thats all they can muster in their small guilds. I do not believe people will be running Ulduar 10 in naxx10 epics. Why? Because anyone still in this sort of gear (spare alts of course) probably is aweful and doesnt care about raiding. I do not mean to say people who dont raid 25 mans are automatically bad, but I do mean to say that at this point in time if you care about raiding you are doing 25 mans for that gear/experience.

The people doing 10 mans are the ones who play once or twice a week for maybe 5-10 hours and pug naxx10 and get half of it done. Thats fine and dandy, but spider and plague wing unfortunately do not carry the same loot as the rest so you end up missing out on a lot of good stuff from the "hard" bosses. The folks who care about raiding and really enjoy it either get frustrated wiping with pugs on 10 mans or move on to 25 mans. The trend right now is to go 10 man then 25 man, but this is not the plan for blizzard. I plan to do both Ulduar 10 and 25 until I get all the achievements for both and claim my shiny new proto drakes.

I think that B has the right idea when they want us to move on from Naxx and only do it on alts or on offnights for fun. Its been done (twice now) and its time to move on. Thats great. What I think they do not understand is that in general, most good players do 25 man raids right now and will not stay in 10 mans forever. This leaves the scrubs to do 10 mans only and wipe endlessly on easy bosses. The other thing is that once Ulduar comes, noone will have any reason to run naxx 10/heroics anymore. Naxx25 will be so easy with ulduar gear that we will be 15 manning it for fun in 2 hours. And we will accrue an inordinate amount of badges that are useless. All those heroic badges you are getting will be worthless. They dont want us to do the same stuff forever, but what else is there to do? Argent tournament dailies? I guess.

I think Blizzard is on the right track by not forcing its players into the same dungeons, but at the moment in time, thats what we are used to doing. We all ran kara countless times in BC and we had fun really. It was a great instance. People just are not going to know what to do when Ulduar comes out. Are you geared enough for Ulduar? Maybe? Noone really knows and pugs will try it the day it drops, guaranteed. And they will complain and complain and it will get nerfed. Then it will be naxx all over again. This is equivalent to getting demoted to mailboy and doing the same thing everyday. Which is fine and pays the bills...but even if you get paid the same (new gear that increases with standard of living changes every year), its still boring to have no stimulation. I hope they keep the difficulty up with Ulduar and dont bitch out and nerf it. I want to wipe. I want pugs to be discouraged and run naxx25 instead of complaining about Ulduar for months to come.