Well, it has been a long hard road but I'm finally exalted with all the goblin factions! It has certainly seemed like the longest grind since you have to start out at 0/36000 hated. That means that in the space of 2-3 months I've managed to rack up 84,000 reputation points total. I amaze even myself sometimes with the ability to mindlessly grind for hours.
I gave myself that extra push over the weekend, partly due to the nice 10% rep gain boost buff you can get from doing the seasonal event (pilgrim's bounty). I kept grinding dire maul and turning in ogre suits, and wrapped it all up with about an hour's worth of griding pirates to push all the reps into exalted. Phew. I wish you had a title for just doing that, but alas you do not. Although I did get the achievement 25 exalted reputations!
I'm also about halfway there with ravenholdt. The 10% boost is really nice, and it should save me a lot of time with the junkbox turn-ins. The beauty is that the majority of the work (pickpocketing mobs) doesn't require you to be wearing the 10% rep buff, so I can just sit in blackrock spire and grind away, and only need to get the buff when I actually TURN IN the junkboxes. Whereas when I was grinding dire maul I had to make sure I had the buff on me. By my calculations I should need only about 600 or so more junkboxes, I have about 100 sitting in my mailbox, and given that I can crank out about 150 per hour, I should be good to go. I just need no distractions whatsoever this week. Oh wait, I think it's Thanksgiving this week...rats!
What to do after I get exalted with ravenholdt in a couple of days? Well, there's darkmoon faire of course. I'm just about to hit revered, after which I will need about 60 decks. I have about 15 sitting in my bank, so I think it's safe to say I probably will not get able to get this one before cata. Not to mention the fact that the next time the fair is in town will be at Elwynn forest, and there is just no way I'm running 10 min to get to the fair, turning in my decks, running 10 min back to the nearest mailbox to mail the trinkets (which you receive as rewards for deck turn-ins and can be worth quite a bit of money), and repeating this process all the while risking getting ganked by alliance. So I will just have to wait another month to turn them in at Thunder bluff or Shattrath. This will give me some more time to get more decks made anyhow. I'm hoping once cata hits northrend will clear out and I should have an easier time gathering herbs without any competition or fear of getting ganked.
What next after I finally get my insane title? Well, I imagine cataclysm will keep me busy for a while. Grinding to 85, doing all the new raids and dungeons, unlocking achievements, etc. If there is still some time left before the cata launch I'd like to get some other factions to exalted. I'm pretty far into revered with the Kalu'ak, I'd like to get that up to exalted. Then I'd like to get those nether-ray mounts by hitting exalted with the shatari skyguard. Apparently you can grind rep pretty fast with those guys so I'd like to add their 6 mounts to my growing collection. After that? Well, there are always more alts to level up.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Deathwing is coming...
You better watch out
You better not wipe
Better not hack
I'm telling you why
Deathwing is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it lots;
Gonna find out
Who's throwing moar dots
Deathwing is coming to town
He sees you when you're raiding
He knows when you're AFK
He knows if you've been a total noob
So stay out of the Death and Decay!
O! You better watch out!
You better not wipe
Better not hack
I'm telling you why
Deathwing is coming to town
Cataclysm launching December 7th!!!
You better not wipe
Better not hack
I'm telling you why
Deathwing is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it lots;
Gonna find out
Who's throwing moar dots
Deathwing is coming to town
He sees you when you're raiding
He knows when you're AFK
He knows if you've been a total noob
So stay out of the Death and Decay!
O! You better watch out!
You better not wipe
Better not hack
I'm telling you why
Deathwing is coming to town
Cataclysm launching December 7th!!!
Almost Insane
It looks as though I'm beginning to see the light at the end of that long, long tunnel after all. I am proud to say that I'm THIS close to being Insane in the Membrane.
After a grueling series of Dire Maul runs, daily Auction House perusing, Scholo & Strat farming, herbing, milling, inscribing, skinning, and of course, killing, I am now the following:
Revered with Bloodsail Buccaneers
Exalted with Shendra'lar
Revered with Ravenholdt (5700/21000)
Revered with Steamwheedle Cartel (6100/21000)
Honored with Darkmoon Faire (1100/12000)
I know, I've only met 2 out of the 5 rep requirements so far, but it really feels like I'm getting close. I only have a short grind (I hope to the gods of Azeroth it will be short) away from exalted with the goblins and ravenholdt, and darkmoon faire...well, I've decided that can wait until cata if it has to.
What was really crapp (and still is sort of crappy) is that Blizz first announced that the Insane title will not be removed from the game in cata, so players can take their time. Which was fine. Then about a month before launch (so a couple weeks ago) that in fact, they WERE removing it since DM is getting reworked and shendra'lar is no longer going to be available. So all of a sudden the price of pristine black diamonds (which you need about 80 for exalted with Shen) skyrocketed to where they were being sold for about ~1000g a pop, compared to ~300g before. Ugh. Luckily I had turned in about 60 of them prior to this, and while farming I picked up a couple more, so I only had to buy about 15 at the inflated price (I found some discounts at ~700g!).
What really sucks now is that because so many people complained about Blizz's shitty management, they decided to keep the insane in the memebrane, but remove the requirements for getting exalted with Shen. I mean, What...The...Fuck. For those of you who have worked so hard to get exalted, you get to have a nice shiny feat of strength! Yay, BIG FUCKING WHOOP. I mean, who gives a shit about a feat of strength? Shen is undoubtedly one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) part of that achievement, due to the near-zero drop rate of diamonds. And now those people who spent hours of their lives on working on this rep...now everyone and their moms will be running around with the insane title, and there will be practically no way to distinguish between those who spent an extra month farming the Shen rep, and those who took the pussy way out in cata. Thanks Blizz, thanks with a big capital FUCK YOU.
Sigh. Well, now that rant is over with, I must say that the other rep grinds aren't so bad. Ravenholdt is not giving me too much trouble, I simply go into blackrock spire and pickpocket for a couple hours and I get ~150-180 junxboxes. I just need to rinse and repeat a few more times and I'll get exalted in no time. The goblins are annoying, because I was hoping not to have to run DM anymore after getting my shendralar rep and just farm pirates. But there's just too much competition from level 40's trying to quest...the pirates don't respawn very quickly and they aren't that clustered together either, making that a slow grind. So I might just have to hit up DM some more.
Darkmoon Faire is going rather slowly, due to the sheer amount of decks needed (100+) and the sheer amount of herbalism materials needed to make either a TBC deck (24 primals + about 15 stacks of outland herbs on average) or a WotLK deck (24 eternals + at least 30-40 stacks of northrend herbs). It's really insane. I've been using a combination approach of scanning the auction house daily for cheap cards, cheap low-level decks, cheap herbs & mats, and just farming herbs myself. Outland decks require less materials, but the drop rate for primals and herbs are much lower, so I've just been farming herbs for hours in northrend. I average about 20 stacks of herbs per hour even with heavy competition. That supplemented with whatever cheap mats I can find on the AH means that on average I can produce ~1 deck per day. The bonus is that I'm also levelling up my shaman through the herb-gathering. Each node gives me 5000xp, and already I've levelled up twice just from herbing nonstop.
All in all, the achievement is, in fact, pretty insane. I'm hoping to have everything except DMF wrapped up before the cata launch (which is only a couple weeks away!). Although the title will have less meaning due to every schmuck having one, it will still be nice. At least I will know that mine was more deserved than the other lazy people who skipped Shen.
After a grueling series of Dire Maul runs, daily Auction House perusing, Scholo & Strat farming, herbing, milling, inscribing, skinning, and of course, killing, I am now the following:
Revered with Bloodsail Buccaneers
Exalted with Shendra'lar
Revered with Ravenholdt (5700/21000)
Revered with Steamwheedle Cartel (6100/21000)
Honored with Darkmoon Faire (1100/12000)
I know, I've only met 2 out of the 5 rep requirements so far, but it really feels like I'm getting close. I only have a short grind (I hope to the gods of Azeroth it will be short) away from exalted with the goblins and ravenholdt, and darkmoon faire...well, I've decided that can wait until cata if it has to.
What was really crapp (and still is sort of crappy) is that Blizz first announced that the Insane title will not be removed from the game in cata, so players can take their time. Which was fine. Then about a month before launch (so a couple weeks ago) that in fact, they WERE removing it since DM is getting reworked and shendra'lar is no longer going to be available. So all of a sudden the price of pristine black diamonds (which you need about 80 for exalted with Shen) skyrocketed to where they were being sold for about ~1000g a pop, compared to ~300g before. Ugh. Luckily I had turned in about 60 of them prior to this, and while farming I picked up a couple more, so I only had to buy about 15 at the inflated price (I found some discounts at ~700g!).
What really sucks now is that because so many people complained about Blizz's shitty management, they decided to keep the insane in the memebrane, but remove the requirements for getting exalted with Shen. I mean, What...The...Fuck. For those of you who have worked so hard to get exalted, you get to have a nice shiny feat of strength! Yay, BIG FUCKING WHOOP. I mean, who gives a shit about a feat of strength? Shen is undoubtedly one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) part of that achievement, due to the near-zero drop rate of diamonds. And now those people who spent hours of their lives on working on this rep...now everyone and their moms will be running around with the insane title, and there will be practically no way to distinguish between those who spent an extra month farming the Shen rep, and those who took the pussy way out in cata. Thanks Blizz, thanks with a big capital FUCK YOU.
Sigh. Well, now that rant is over with, I must say that the other rep grinds aren't so bad. Ravenholdt is not giving me too much trouble, I simply go into blackrock spire and pickpocket for a couple hours and I get ~150-180 junxboxes. I just need to rinse and repeat a few more times and I'll get exalted in no time. The goblins are annoying, because I was hoping not to have to run DM anymore after getting my shendralar rep and just farm pirates. But there's just too much competition from level 40's trying to quest...the pirates don't respawn very quickly and they aren't that clustered together either, making that a slow grind. So I might just have to hit up DM some more.
Darkmoon Faire is going rather slowly, due to the sheer amount of decks needed (100+) and the sheer amount of herbalism materials needed to make either a TBC deck (24 primals + about 15 stacks of outland herbs on average) or a WotLK deck (24 eternals + at least 30-40 stacks of northrend herbs). It's really insane. I've been using a combination approach of scanning the auction house daily for cheap cards, cheap low-level decks, cheap herbs & mats, and just farming herbs myself. Outland decks require less materials, but the drop rate for primals and herbs are much lower, so I've just been farming herbs for hours in northrend. I average about 20 stacks of herbs per hour even with heavy competition. That supplemented with whatever cheap mats I can find on the AH means that on average I can produce ~1 deck per day. The bonus is that I'm also levelling up my shaman through the herb-gathering. Each node gives me 5000xp, and already I've levelled up twice just from herbing nonstop.
All in all, the achievement is, in fact, pretty insane. I'm hoping to have everything except DMF wrapped up before the cata launch (which is only a couple weeks away!). Although the title will have less meaning due to every schmuck having one, it will still be nice. At least I will know that mine was more deserved than the other lazy people who skipped Shen.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thoughts on 4.0.1
I am lovin this new pre-cata patch. Oh, I know, it wasn't exactly fair and I know plenty of warriors, combat rogues, paladins, hunters etc are out there QQing about the nerf. But some people did come out winners - namely all casters (have you recently raided with a shadow priest or warlock? They pump out simply ungodly numbers on the recount charts these days), elemental shammies, and mutilate rogues.
To be honest mutilate rogues didn't get a buff, but when it seems as though all melee classes got a big nerf, I sure feel lucky that my DPS has not dropped by any noticeable amount. All the talents are still about the same (minor tweaks here and there), and the only big mechanic changes are:
1. Rupture is now part of the mutilate rotation. Before you used it to get the bleed effect if no one else was applying one so you could get the 6% damage buff. Now every rupture tick will grant you energy regen, which means it's absolutely CRUCIAL to apply the longest duration of rupture on the boss and keep it up at all times. Not that this really complicates the mutilate rotation - before it was: mutilate, mutilate, envenom. Now it's: mutilate, mutilate, rupture, mutilate, mutilate, envenom. Oh noes one additional button to press! I swear rogues have the easiest rotation given how much damage they do.
2. The execute phase, which is sort of a major change, but a good one! When the enemy is below 35% health, your backstab grants you 35 energy regen! Which means when the boss drops below 35%, you can basically spam backstab until 5 combo points. The energy regain from the backstab (which is even more if you glyph for it), plus the extra energy from any rupture ticks means that during the execute phase, your energy bar never drops below 50% - more often than not I find myself not being able to use up my energy fast enough! What limits me is the global cooldown on backstab, which is just...insanity. Backstab crits for well over 10k too.
Ah, I've gotten totally sidetracked. The REAL buff that I'm happy about is the recuperate ability. Use your combo points (which can be on a mob already dead) to heal yourself for 3% health every 3 seconds....doesn't sound like much, and it won't do you any good if something hits you real hard, but for soloing dungeons? Fuggeaboudit. Yes, I could solo dungeons before - even some vanilla raids and end-game TBC dungeons. But obviously with no healing ability I'd fight a pack of mobs, then either have to eat or bandage myself in between. Sometimes long boss fights took me dangerously low, not to mention that it was annoying to have to fill my hp back up all the time.
But now with this recuperate ability, whenever I see my hp dropping a little I just use whatever combo points I have going on to HoT myself! Since most vanilla/RBC dungeon mobs don't hit that hard, the HoT is more than enough to get me back up to full and I can go on to the next pack with no downtime!
More importantly, I can now solo things I just couldn't do before. Fights where if I just had a little bit of healing in addition to potions, maybe I could survive. I soloed the tiger boss in Zul Gurub the other night - sure the boss doesn't hit hard, but those 500-1000 hits start whittling down your health as the fight draws on. But with recuperate ticking away, that damage is cancelled out! With other abilities like evasion, bandaging myself between phases, and healing pots, I was able to bring down high priest Thekal! Although sadly he did not drop his awesome Zulian tiger mount...someday!
I can even solo level 80 group quests now (omg I know so OP - whoever has heard of a rogue soloing anything?). I did Threat from Above, which wasn't easy - it took me down to about 10% health. But I figured out that after you bring down Chillmaw, you can simply vanish and the cultist adds will not despawn! So you focus fire on Chillmaw with the HoTs ticking away, right after she goes down just vanish! Move away, heal up, sneak back in and sap cultist 1, blind cultist 2, kill cultist 3, kill cultist 2 right as he comes out of blind, kill cultist at your leisure. Gotta love that 45 second timer on sap.
I realize that of course, some of this would not be doable without being decked out in end-game gear as I am. And I'm not sure if Blizzard intended for recuperate to even be useful to level 80s - I read somewhere it was intended to reduce downtime during levelling. But whatever, until it gets nerfed somehow in the next patch, I'm going to keep soloing things and enjoying the ride.
To be honest mutilate rogues didn't get a buff, but when it seems as though all melee classes got a big nerf, I sure feel lucky that my DPS has not dropped by any noticeable amount. All the talents are still about the same (minor tweaks here and there), and the only big mechanic changes are:
1. Rupture is now part of the mutilate rotation. Before you used it to get the bleed effect if no one else was applying one so you could get the 6% damage buff. Now every rupture tick will grant you energy regen, which means it's absolutely CRUCIAL to apply the longest duration of rupture on the boss and keep it up at all times. Not that this really complicates the mutilate rotation - before it was: mutilate, mutilate, envenom. Now it's: mutilate, mutilate, rupture, mutilate, mutilate, envenom. Oh noes one additional button to press! I swear rogues have the easiest rotation given how much damage they do.
2. The execute phase, which is sort of a major change, but a good one! When the enemy is below 35% health, your backstab grants you 35 energy regen! Which means when the boss drops below 35%, you can basically spam backstab until 5 combo points. The energy regain from the backstab (which is even more if you glyph for it), plus the extra energy from any rupture ticks means that during the execute phase, your energy bar never drops below 50% - more often than not I find myself not being able to use up my energy fast enough! What limits me is the global cooldown on backstab, which is just...insanity. Backstab crits for well over 10k too.
Ah, I've gotten totally sidetracked. The REAL buff that I'm happy about is the recuperate ability. Use your combo points (which can be on a mob already dead) to heal yourself for 3% health every 3 seconds....doesn't sound like much, and it won't do you any good if something hits you real hard, but for soloing dungeons? Fuggeaboudit. Yes, I could solo dungeons before - even some vanilla raids and end-game TBC dungeons. But obviously with no healing ability I'd fight a pack of mobs, then either have to eat or bandage myself in between. Sometimes long boss fights took me dangerously low, not to mention that it was annoying to have to fill my hp back up all the time.
But now with this recuperate ability, whenever I see my hp dropping a little I just use whatever combo points I have going on to HoT myself! Since most vanilla/RBC dungeon mobs don't hit that hard, the HoT is more than enough to get me back up to full and I can go on to the next pack with no downtime!
More importantly, I can now solo things I just couldn't do before. Fights where if I just had a little bit of healing in addition to potions, maybe I could survive. I soloed the tiger boss in Zul Gurub the other night - sure the boss doesn't hit hard, but those 500-1000 hits start whittling down your health as the fight draws on. But with recuperate ticking away, that damage is cancelled out! With other abilities like evasion, bandaging myself between phases, and healing pots, I was able to bring down high priest Thekal! Although sadly he did not drop his awesome Zulian tiger mount...someday!
I can even solo level 80 group quests now (omg I know so OP - whoever has heard of a rogue soloing anything?). I did Threat from Above, which wasn't easy - it took me down to about 10% health. But I figured out that after you bring down Chillmaw, you can simply vanish and the cultist adds will not despawn! So you focus fire on Chillmaw with the HoTs ticking away, right after she goes down just vanish! Move away, heal up, sneak back in and sap cultist 1, blind cultist 2, kill cultist 3, kill cultist 2 right as he comes out of blind, kill cultist at your leisure. Gotta love that 45 second timer on sap.
I realize that of course, some of this would not be doable without being decked out in end-game gear as I am. And I'm not sure if Blizzard intended for recuperate to even be useful to level 80s - I read somewhere it was intended to reduce downtime during levelling. But whatever, until it gets nerfed somehow in the next patch, I'm going to keep soloing things and enjoying the ride.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
zomg Arthas dead
Christ, how did I forget to blog about this one?? Last Thursday the guild downed lich king on 25man!!! We did it on our 4th try! People were dropping like flies during the valk/defile phase, but once we made it over that speed bump, things were smooth sailing. Arthas went down, some purples dropped, everyone celebrated...peace and prosperity for all!
I still want my icc drake, but with the big scary new patch coming out which will destroy all our talent trees, who knows if that will actually be accomplished. Maybe if they don't remove it from the game (though I have a strong suspicion it will be gone when cata hits), I can farm it at 85...
I still want my icc drake, but with the big scary new patch coming out which will destroy all our talent trees, who knows if that will actually be accomplished. Maybe if they don't remove it from the game (though I have a strong suspicion it will be gone when cata hits), I can farm it at 85...
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Farmville??? Get a life.
I can't stand all these facebook requests I'm getting to start playing Farmville. So and so has sent you a gift on farmville! So and so wants you to adopt a sheep on farmville! So and so has just slaughtered a pig and wants to offer you some pork!
I mean, COME ON people. It's sad how addicted some people are at this game. Case in point: recently there was a mayor or governor somewhere who just had to resign because people found out he wasn't getting work done and playing farmville all day instead. I was just in Hawaii and I saw more than one person playing farmville on their laptops in the lobby downstairs. I mean, WTF!!!! I had a freaking kidney stone but I still went snorkeling despite debilitating pain. These people chose to ignore sunny beaches and beautiful waterfalls so they could do what? Raise some virtual corn crops on their virtual farm? Get a grip!
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with these cutesy little sim games. Heck, I've played quite a few myself and I think they're fun and addicting at times. But let's get one thing straight here: games like farmville are CASUAL games, meant to be enjoyed as such. They are meant for your iphone, to be dabbled in 15-min sessions while you're waiting in line at the airport. They are only meant to be played on your computer during episodes of extreme boredom when nothing else is available (ie wow patch days).
See, here's the way I see it. There are hardcore games, and there are hardcore gamers. In my opinion only three types of games qualify as hardcore - First person shooter, Real-time stragety, and MMORPG. The reason I say that is because hardcore games NEED to involve some sort of competitive online gameplay that pits you against other players - this aspect is what makes the game hardcore. The three genres mentioned above are the only ones where there is a large enough gamer base to ensure a true competitive playing environment. Sending your friend a basket of corn over farmville DOES NOT COUNT.
Hardcore games are not meant to be played safely in your own little world. Hardcore games are not meant to be friendly nor user-friendly. Hardcore games have a steep learning curve - they give you a few basic pointers then throw you out into a vast online world of competitive douchebags. You will be beaten and humiliated to a degree you will never experience in a game like farmville. No one gangs up on your livestock, teabags them, and /spits in your face before leaving.
Ultimately, hardcore games turn people into hardcore gamers. After losing a brutal match, you nerdrage, vow revenge, and begin learning. You read up on strategy online or on forums, you upgrade your computer to run the game better, you start devoting more and more time into becoming a better player, and before you know it you've become - ta-da! - a hardcore gamer.
So what I really don't understand are these people who play casual games as though they were hardcore gamers. People who devote wayyyyyy too much time into playing a silly little casual game. If you're going to spend 5+ hours a day playing a game, people, at least play something worthwhile. It takes the brain power equivalent of a nematoad to play these casual games (I mean, are you even doing anything besides clicking??? If you're not using at least 80% of your keyboard in any hardcore game you fail). If I ever played that much farmville I'd hide myself from all online communities and cover my face in shame, not broadcast my latest farmville achievement on facebook.
But I digress - if you want to be a total pussy of a gamer and spend hours feeding your chickens, be my guest. But please keep all that shit out of my face (metaphorically) by not informing me every 5 min via facebook of all your remarkable farm-related accomplishments. And please don't have the audacity to assume that I would ever want to disgrace myself and my laptop by taking part in your little farm adventures.
I mean, COME ON people. It's sad how addicted some people are at this game. Case in point: recently there was a mayor or governor somewhere who just had to resign because people found out he wasn't getting work done and playing farmville all day instead. I was just in Hawaii and I saw more than one person playing farmville on their laptops in the lobby downstairs. I mean, WTF!!!! I had a freaking kidney stone but I still went snorkeling despite debilitating pain. These people chose to ignore sunny beaches and beautiful waterfalls so they could do what? Raise some virtual corn crops on their virtual farm? Get a grip!
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with these cutesy little sim games. Heck, I've played quite a few myself and I think they're fun and addicting at times. But let's get one thing straight here: games like farmville are CASUAL games, meant to be enjoyed as such. They are meant for your iphone, to be dabbled in 15-min sessions while you're waiting in line at the airport. They are only meant to be played on your computer during episodes of extreme boredom when nothing else is available (ie wow patch days).
See, here's the way I see it. There are hardcore games, and there are hardcore gamers. In my opinion only three types of games qualify as hardcore - First person shooter, Real-time stragety, and MMORPG. The reason I say that is because hardcore games NEED to involve some sort of competitive online gameplay that pits you against other players - this aspect is what makes the game hardcore. The three genres mentioned above are the only ones where there is a large enough gamer base to ensure a true competitive playing environment. Sending your friend a basket of corn over farmville DOES NOT COUNT.
Hardcore games are not meant to be played safely in your own little world. Hardcore games are not meant to be friendly nor user-friendly. Hardcore games have a steep learning curve - they give you a few basic pointers then throw you out into a vast online world of competitive douchebags. You will be beaten and humiliated to a degree you will never experience in a game like farmville. No one gangs up on your livestock, teabags them, and /spits in your face before leaving.
Ultimately, hardcore games turn people into hardcore gamers. After losing a brutal match, you nerdrage, vow revenge, and begin learning. You read up on strategy online or on forums, you upgrade your computer to run the game better, you start devoting more and more time into becoming a better player, and before you know it you've become - ta-da! - a hardcore gamer.
So what I really don't understand are these people who play casual games as though they were hardcore gamers. People who devote wayyyyyy too much time into playing a silly little casual game. If you're going to spend 5+ hours a day playing a game, people, at least play something worthwhile. It takes the brain power equivalent of a nematoad to play these casual games (I mean, are you even doing anything besides clicking??? If you're not using at least 80% of your keyboard in any hardcore game you fail). If I ever played that much farmville I'd hide myself from all online communities and cover my face in shame, not broadcast my latest farmville achievement on facebook.
But I digress - if you want to be a total pussy of a gamer and spend hours feeding your chickens, be my guest. But please keep all that shit out of my face (metaphorically) by not informing me every 5 min via facebook of all your remarkable farm-related accomplishments. And please don't have the audacity to assume that I would ever want to disgrace myself and my laptop by taking part in your little farm adventures.
10m vs 25m
I think I posted sometime before saying that 25mans were actually easier than 10mans. I'd like to officially retract that post.
My evidence for such a preposterous claim came from a very limited experience of end-game raids, particularly in 25mans. I think my observation was from the simple reasoning that it's impossible for anyone to die when 7 people are simultaneously casting heals on you! Oh how naive. It is very much possible to die despite 7 HoTs and flash heals going off on you. When the boss can cleave for 70k, there's just no hope for non-tanks.
Anyways, ICC raiding has changed that outlook drastically. 25man raids are much more difficult, not due to the increased damage or HP, but from the number of adds (which usually TRIPLE), limited space to spread out in, and the sheer difficulty of trying to assign 25 people to do different things at once.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there are certain fights where it's actually easier in 25man. Sometimes when the raid has to split up into groups for more than one boss, the fight does get easier with more people. For example I've done the assembly of iron in both 10 and 25man version - the 25man run went much smoother because we had 3 dedicated tanks, who each had a dedicated healer (whereas in 10man you'd have someone be a "makeshift" tank receiving some heals once in a while, or a risky range/interrupt tank). But this is probably one of the very few examples.
In ICC particularly 25mans are very challenging. No wonder it took our server's top guild over a month between the 10man heroic and 25man heroic kill.
The problems of spreading people out to avoid splash damage become exponentially hard going from 10 to 25 man. Because while you can make up for increased boss hp and damage with your increased DPS and healing, there is nothing you can do about the size of the playing field.
Take the blood queen fight for instance. In my opinion one of the hardest fights to execute well in 25man. Spreading out that many people in that tiny little room, in addition to working out the bite order amongst ~20 dps characters becomes a nightmare very quickly. Oh no I have swarming shadows! Run in a circle! Oh wait no there are people EVERYWHERE and no matter where I go I will kill someone. Bite this guy! Oh wait he's dead from getting hit by 6 bloodbolts because people didn't spread out in the air phase.
Last night the guild attempted 25man lich king, which was really really tough. We didn't down him obviously (but we got close!) after repeated attempts, whereas 10man lich king took two tries. I remember everyone complaining about how much defile sucks and then seeing it for myself on 10man and thinking, "this is a piece of cake". Well, I think everyone was talking about 25man, because defile really does suck. When one of them unluckily drops on someone in the middle of the raid...there's just no way to run out of this thing. The longer you stay in it, the larger it gets, and by the time you realize it the entire platform is covered in that disgusting gray ooze. And your raid has either died or committed suicide off the platform.
Oh well, we're tyring again tonight. Maybe we'll get super lucky and get it this time.
My evidence for such a preposterous claim came from a very limited experience of end-game raids, particularly in 25mans. I think my observation was from the simple reasoning that it's impossible for anyone to die when 7 people are simultaneously casting heals on you! Oh how naive. It is very much possible to die despite 7 HoTs and flash heals going off on you. When the boss can cleave for 70k, there's just no hope for non-tanks.
Anyways, ICC raiding has changed that outlook drastically. 25man raids are much more difficult, not due to the increased damage or HP, but from the number of adds (which usually TRIPLE), limited space to spread out in, and the sheer difficulty of trying to assign 25 people to do different things at once.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there are certain fights where it's actually easier in 25man. Sometimes when the raid has to split up into groups for more than one boss, the fight does get easier with more people. For example I've done the assembly of iron in both 10 and 25man version - the 25man run went much smoother because we had 3 dedicated tanks, who each had a dedicated healer (whereas in 10man you'd have someone be a "makeshift" tank receiving some heals once in a while, or a risky range/interrupt tank). But this is probably one of the very few examples.
In ICC particularly 25mans are very challenging. No wonder it took our server's top guild over a month between the 10man heroic and 25man heroic kill.
The problems of spreading people out to avoid splash damage become exponentially hard going from 10 to 25 man. Because while you can make up for increased boss hp and damage with your increased DPS and healing, there is nothing you can do about the size of the playing field.
Take the blood queen fight for instance. In my opinion one of the hardest fights to execute well in 25man. Spreading out that many people in that tiny little room, in addition to working out the bite order amongst ~20 dps characters becomes a nightmare very quickly. Oh no I have swarming shadows! Run in a circle! Oh wait no there are people EVERYWHERE and no matter where I go I will kill someone. Bite this guy! Oh wait he's dead from getting hit by 6 bloodbolts because people didn't spread out in the air phase.
Last night the guild attempted 25man lich king, which was really really tough. We didn't down him obviously (but we got close!) after repeated attempts, whereas 10man lich king took two tries. I remember everyone complaining about how much defile sucks and then seeing it for myself on 10man and thinking, "this is a piece of cake". Well, I think everyone was talking about 25man, because defile really does suck. When one of them unluckily drops on someone in the middle of the raid...there's just no way to run out of this thing. The longer you stay in it, the larger it gets, and by the time you realize it the entire platform is covered in that disgusting gray ooze. And your raid has either died or committed suicide off the platform.
Oh well, we're tyring again tonight. Maybe we'll get super lucky and get it this time.
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