So, as usual, this post is coming terribly late /sigh

I had the wonderful fortune, last time I was pottering about on the beta realm, to bump into a fellow EU-ite blogger!  Just as I was wandering through the leatherworking trainer’s shop I ran past an oddly familiar female human priest.  Cue a double take when I realised it was none other than Sephrenia from Guild Mum.  Oddly enough I’d just commented on her site saying I’d like to see her around on the beta if she was figuring on doing anything fun!

We chatted for a little bit, but I had to go grab some things on another char and made my farewells.  Since Softi was on and also chatting back and forth I suggested we make a wee channel for the EU bloggers instead of struggling to play about with a million whispers (multi-tasking, whassat?).

So, for any EU bloggers who happen to be on the beta, if you want to chat we’ve started a chat channel: eubloggers (yes, we’re terribly imaginitave *ahem*).  It’s not often we’ll get the chance to hang out together on one realm so I’d love to see anyone who happens to be about!

Seems like only yesterday she wis runnin’ aboot Azuremyst playin’ wi’ moths and jumpin’ off cliffs.  Then she got herself intae Outlands and finished her Druid trainin‘ an’ started tae learn how tae tank wi’ her face… Noo the wee scamp has been makin’ friends and got herself all sorts o’ new shinies.

It’s been a busy week for druidlet Jhai - since the all-druid Kara romp.  I’m working on a whole lot of things in order to get her a little more ‘ready’ for Wrath.  She won’t have the time to gear-up as substantially as my Rogue and Shaman have so I just want to make sure she has what she needs to start out fresh with on the next levelling push.

It’s important to me, personally, that I ‘vindicate’ my druidness.  I am a druid at heart, I love druids and I talk about them a lot bot here and in guild.  I sometimes get the feeling the ‘real’ druids (those with a druid as their main’ see me as somewhat of a nublet annoyance and that I need to prove myself to them.  It doesn’t help I’m totally under confidant about my abilites (this is not constrained to my druid, though) so I always shy away from pushing myself towards doing groups.

I had dreams and hopes on my old druid.  I had wanted Earthwarden, and I had wanted the Gilded Thoriumweave Cloak before I moved and started playing with Aurik.  It’s become a somewhat happy/peaceful thing for me to get these things on Jhai as it’s like fulfillment of old dreams.

Anyway, enough of my cheesy soppiness.

Factions

• Cenarion Expedition - Exalted! I got my [Earthwarden].  2H Maces > Staves. Tabard, too!
• Kurenai - Exalted! [Cobalt Riding Talbuk] I really like the white armored one but Mharai has that.
• Shattered Sun Offensive - Exalted! Almost every neck (except the boomie one) to play with.
• Aldor - Exalted! Well, once I had my necks I had to be able to use the fun procs, right? Access to the shoulder enchants is nice, too.
• Keepers of Time - Revered.  Well, at least I can get to Tanaris easily now?

So, via factions, I’ve gained a few nice upgrades.  These are all the really easy ones, though - I wouldn’t mind grabbing Lower City, The Sha’tar and Honor Hold revered / exalted just so I have access to some recipes, glyphs, tabards and nice items for both main and off sets.  Although Wrath is coming soon-ish the beta has shown that a lot of the really nice TBC items won’t be replaced for at least a little while and I’d like to be able to comfortably instance on my way up!  Oh and  I wouldn’t mind Sporeggar / Ogri’la rep for the pet…

Skills

• Cooking - 330 and on its way up.  I need to go around and get myself recipes so I can cook all of the meat I have kicking about in various toons bags.
• Fishing - Ugh, I think I’m sitting about at 245 or so? I always enjoyed flitting about and fishing on the druid, though, it’s a lot faster than re-mounting for all of those little pools of fishing in mountain ponds.

What Next?

So… what else do I want to work towards my ‘druid v2′?  First of all I could do with boosting my dps gear.  Oddly enough, lately I’ve been asked to dps rather than tank a few times and I feel more than a little sub-par as I’ve gotten most of my dps from quest /crafted gear.   I have a few nice pieces, no doubt, but other bits are a little lacking - I need to get my fuzzy butt into Black Morass and see if I can get my trinket, for instance.

Epic flying form I could get… but I’d like to actually have some gold so  I can buy, you know, repairs?! Hehe.  Maybe if I spend a little more time on dailies and less time putting about trying to avoid them now I’m exalted.  I could also finish all the quests I have in SMV or do the Ogri dailies instead to avoid boredom.  As soon as I have a decent cushion I’ll see about getting myself epic pidgeon form.

Oh, and I need to go PvP and get myself some s2 gloves.  /sigh

Ok ok, I know.  Beta stuff.  I’m not meant to be posting much about it! The rest of my posts are pretty beta free, though, and I really wanted to show off parts of the two of the cool new druid abilities - Feral Charge (Cat) and Berserk (Bear).

If you are a wee bit curious then see after the cut!

(Won’t subject those to it as don’t want to see it /hugs)

Can’t get it to cut in a feed reader - apologies.  Can anyone tell me how to do it for next time?

Read more

Seems that a’v been called up early - brought in tae Northrend tae gie a wee hand wi’ settin’ up things for the rest who’re comin’. Sure there’s a few problems the noo but I’m sure we’ll get things sorted…

I just had to…. Oh come on, he needs a hug! I managed to snag myself a beta key so I’m having a sneak peek around the new stuff.  I’ve created and am playing around wih my Death Knight - it’s interesting and different and I love the starter quests - very cool.  I’ve been a bit ill the past few days so I don’t have much coherent to say yet - I’ll maybe work up something more interesting for later.

Oh and I have to admit a little bit of squeeing when I submitted my very first bug ticket.  I’m making a difference! *ahem*

Ah hear tell o’ trouble on the horizon, somethin’ big brewin’ in the frozen lands.  Ah can feel it in my bones, my heart.  Darkness is spreadin’ again and I have a feelin’ it’s gonnae get  a lot worse afore it gets better.

Pookies inspired post inc, get those hots rolling, this may be a bumpy ride!

So, my latest alt has hit 70, I’m plowing through quests for gold and pondering what to do when the expansion comes.  A fever has overtaken my brain since the first ’serious’ beta notes began to come out.  I’m having a hard time being enthusiastic about any one of my current 70 characters - knowing they’ll very soon be undergeared and underlevelled again.

I’m dreaming of Death Knights.  This annoys me as it’s so horribly ‘common’ and I hate being so utterly intrigued by the Mary Sue of all classes but, goddamnit - those videos, the class abilites, the niche and, of course, the BIG SWORDS are making me drool.

One of the biggest turn-offs for rogues in the expansion for me is that they are pushing daggers and dagger spec/abilities heavily and I just don’t like daggers! Odd, for a rogue, I know, but I picked the class based on ’stabby stab’ and then realised I liked my stabby-stab to be from a rather large sword.  I know many might see this as a silly thing but as a mechanic and how I see my character the new stuff just doesn’t work for me.  There’s a few nice things they’re adding for rogues but nothing that totally grips me. I am not blaming Blizzard or whining at them -  I know things may change, yet, but unless they change substantially then I will change how I play.

I’ve even ‘created’ my Death Knight already, reserved a name and decided on professions tentatively - not worthless as I will have one as an alt if I don’t have it as a main.

I’m a little torn as I want to level a Death Knight when the expansion comes out but this will mean I lag a few weeks behind the other fast levellers in my guild - I’m also not even guaranteed to like playing one! (Hoping for an open beta in the last few weeks).

Also, there are going to be three billion Death Knights out there.  This particular fact bothers me less than it once did as I reckon the majority will lose interest very quickly (much like all of those abandoned belfadins and squid shammys).  I want a more complex class to play in a raid setting and one which has more raid utility so even if I don’t go for a Death Knight I’d want to switch to one of my other alts.

Just some ponderings.

The Burning Crusade Goes On!

On the other side of things, though, as the great BBB has said it’s at least a few months away and I’m certainly not going to totally lose interest in what I’m doing - hell I want to down Archi and work on getting further into BT - I know we may not see Illidan but I’m on the path and I ain’t stepping off it until the Lich King drags me by the beard (or ponytails…)!

Like Leafy I probably won’t be spending much time pondering over Wrath stuff on my blog until Wrath actually hits us.  I also like to be surprised by new zones and the general feel of a place so although I’ve had a peek at screenies and some professions / class info I am dragging myself away from Siha of Banana Shoulders’ video posts - have a look if you’re ravenous for every Northrend fix y’can get.

Perhaps not a complete anti-wrath blanket like he’s done but generally I concentrate on the here and now posts anyways.  The only change in this will be if my beloved world events get a mention from the beta.  I loves my world events…

Each an’ every place I’ve been to has it’s own unique flavor. Some seem harder for me tae do, some harder for mah friends. It’s all aboot what skills ye can utilise at the time, ‘ken? Some o’ us are blessed wi’ sneakery and skills which are useful - others bring a solid, big lump o’ ‘presence’ tae any adventurin’ party and yet others, well, they bring ways tae benefit the group. Now, in mah mind, ah’d rather go wi’ someone ah knew and trust than just someone wi’ a trick up their sleeve but maybe that’s jist me.

This is not a whine, nor a ’screw you instance designers’ post - it is simply a look at how Blizzard have been moving forward with their instance design, how that can affect which instances are ‘unfair’ given certain class combinations and what ways there are to get around this. Initially this was, as you might suspect, a post I had started thinking about when Magister’s Terrace first came out but I believe it is, has been and will continue to be relevant for The Burning Crusade and Wrath expansions.

First of all, we have to look at what instances are for. They are there to give us a challenge, to go beyond the level of the world quests and grind and, with a group, have some fun or at least experience something different.

So, what’s the ‘problem’? Well, first of all a group comprises of five people. Out of 9 (soon 10) classes you can only have a small selection - which means lacking the key abilities of any classes you do not bring with you. This, to get rid of the big loomy thing, includes, but is not limited to, crowd control (including off-tanking) as well as AoE (tanking and damage), anti-crowd control (fear ward, tremor totem), HoTs, specific damage reduction (heavy melee dmg versus heavy magic encounters) and debuffs (wounding poison, mortal strike abilities).

Some examples where class-specific abilites are extremely beneficial:

• Shattered Halls - Paladin AoE tanking.
• Mana Tombs - Tremor totems / grounding totem.
• Steam Vaults - Multiple crowd control.
• Magister’s Terrace - Multiple crowd control.
• Slave Pens / Underbog - Nature resist + anti-poison abilities.
• Botanica - Fire resistance auras / totems + cleansing totems.

These are mostly what I can remember off the top of my head and kind of focussed around the classes I personally play (druid, shaman, rogue) as they’re, obviously, easier to remember for me but there are plenty more instances of certain utility spells, abilities or class mechanics making certain instance runs easier.

Now, you might be thinking: I totally don’t need that stuff, it’s easy to do it without! Think back to when you weren’t overgeared, or when you run a harder heroic etc. i.e. Where you’ll be when you first hit those Wrath instances on your way to 80. Heroic Underbog, way back then when it used to be a pain - I remember just standing back and abolishing / throwing hots as my feral druid as it made the fight far easier than me clawing at the arse end of Hungarfen. Utility over raw dps!

In fact, the five man setting is really quite different to that of the raid setting. Ten or twenty-five man bosses are supposed to take a long time, test your healers mana pool, your tanks avoidance / stamina and your dps’s pewpew. But, in a five man, the fights have to be a lot shorter and a little simpler. Why? Because you can’t be guaranteed some things which you might get in a raid - synergy in raids is what makes them able to last much longer than five groups of five would if all were split into the same structures as a five man.

As an example… in a raid my shaman might be in a group with other healers and a shadow priest. He’d get the benefit of paladins blessing, druid buffs, and mana regen from the priest, whilst giving his own totem buffs to them. In an instance he may get these but often he won’t. His mana totem has no use for the tank and the LotP aura does little for him as he’s not doing damage (ok, so it might make his work easier but you should get my point). Synergy is not guaranteed in five mans.

So here comes the rub. Blizzard wants to make encounters more challenging but are faced with the decision or trying to make it so that everyone can be useful. This is, obviously, entirely possible but the problem comes where there is a mechanic which makes one class far more preferable to another. People are fickle and will try to maximise their groups so as to take the least time and to run the most smoothly.

Magister’s Terrace was a big example of this. I’m glad I’ve waited some time to come around to this article as things have settled down enough to see how it’s panned out. From what I’m seeing in LFG and in guild normal MgT has become a little looser - people are willing to take fewer crowd control classes if the class in question has some other utility (i.e. shamans). I still see dps warriors and crittycats/boomkins being snubbed as they’re not seen as being useful enough to warrant one less cc. I have actually seen groups break up because there was no cc available even when there were plenty of non-cc available. Multiple melee are also still seen as a disadvantage as they make the healer’s job much more difficult. The third boss is easy if you can control all of the adds and burst them down in turn, for instance. If you don’t you can expect a dead healer most of the time. Crowd control is simply what makes this instance harder for it’s level than most other instances in TBC.

Heroic is even worse - one of our enhancement shamans ended up respeccing to resto just so he could have a shot at gear from MgT.

The thing is… this is probably one of the few instances I’d say is really nice and challenging now. Even on normal if you’re not paying attention a slip can cause a wipe. Good gear really doesn’t help much if you miss-pull or don’t kill the orbs or get charged by the warrior-mob etc. It is, in my mind, a sort of five person raid instance.

In vanilla wow, half of the ‘challenge’ was in the length, interesting pulls, big pulls, special debuffs etc. They’ve already said they’re intending non-heroic’s in Wrath to take around an hour or less - no more long slogs! However, this increases the need for more gimmicks to make the places challenging. If you can ‘breeze through’ it in 45 mins to one hour then are you really going to feel like it was a challenge? Now, MgT feels like a challenge even if you do complete it in one hour so I can see the designers plotting things with more intrinsic difficulty but how are they going to do it without over-reliance on one set of class abilities?

• Some mention has been made of using flying mounts within the instances - a gimmick (and not I do not use the word entirely negatively) which will, at least, make the place more interesting. How they implement it will very much depend on how much people end up feeling about it - too complex and people will dislike it, too simple and it will just be plain gimmicky (in the bad sense). Changing controls is not a thing a lot of people like to or are able to do quickly (i.e. Construct handling on Teron). If they ‘teach’ people how to handle it outside the instance, with quests, as seems likely given the interviews then we might see it working better. Of course, this is all speculative until we see what they do with it.
• Time trials are another thing which makes an instance more challenging. We’ve seen it in Zul’Aman and with some quests within five mans but it would be another way to make things more interesting or challenging. Of course, it’s a way to make it more frustrating, too, but it gives the place more replayability and that’s a big plus in my eyes. If the ‘time trial’ is limited to extra loot or extra benefits then I’d say it’d be a good mechanic to add to more instances.
• Wave instances - that is, where you are swamped by wave after wave of mobs and then get to a boss monster. Hate them or love them they certainly make an instance challenging. Think of the first few times you ran BM? It’s another way to keep the instance short too.

I’d certainly like to see them expand upon what they have as well as innovating something that I probably wouldn’t have even dreamed of. Utilising methods such as the time trials and wave instances make things more challenging without making it imperative to have one class type. More instance design like this will help work towards ‘fairer’ five mans and is something I certainly hope to see in Wrath.

Now I’m going back to shiny spam posts for a while… /ded

Well, ah like tae get from A to B in style and there’s nothin’ better than gliding along on the back ‘o a nightsaber or, if ye feel like takin’ tae the skies, a nether drake. Tae be honest wi ye, ah think ah’m gonnae huv tae start my own stables wi all the mounts I have!

Blame Fim for this post… and the title. It’s his fault. No really. He’s ‘the man’ when it comes to post-title-jokes which invariably make me groan. Go check out some of them here.

Mounts are our companions, always with us and taking us to places we wish to go faster than we could on foot. They are a cornerstone of the WoW economy - with many people spending the majority of their gold on getting one. They can be a status symbol, a roleplaying companion or simply a fast way from A to B but for a few people one is not enough!

Personal Mounts
I loves them all even though I don’t really have any special ones. A while ago I posted about getting my mist ’saber - a mount I’ve wanted for quite some time and was asked if I had named it. I haven’t yet, but I’ve not been averse to doing so in the past when I’ve been so fond of a mount or worked hard to get it.

Mharai, my first druid, was on an RP server. Her ’schtick’ was that she was an avid collector and breeder of oversize mounts for the use of Tauren. I’m not really into ‘epic’ roleplaying, can you tell? *ahem*

I’ve never owned a kodo on Mharai and set out to get a wolf for her at 40. It took me until level 43 to get it (not sure why) but I was happy and that wolf was the first mount I ever named: Ice. She was a brown wolf but I named her for the glacier-ice green/blue of her eyes. At 60 I got myself a white wolf and then set out towards Outlands with a greedy eye on all of the mounts I could now work towards.

I was always sorely disappointed that Tauren couldn’t ride some mounts - with a happy moment coming when I found that pvp raptors were Tauren-approved. I spent some time in battleground and came out with a rather huge lizard. If you’ve never seen a Tauren on a raptor you’re missing out. Doubly so as you’ll never have seen them on a raptor with the Sen’jin village buff, Winterfall Firewater and Bloodlust! (and, I’ve been told, the cookies from the Halloween Event also stack).

Collecting
Anyway! Like many others I enjoy collecting mounts and will go to silly degrees just to get myself one. I really do like how Blizzard has noticed the love of new mounts and made them available by, for instance, relatively easy rep-grinds. It’s something a little easier than pet collecting (though I do that too) but with more of a presence (I mean, who doesn’t gawp when someone rides by with the Anzu mount?)

Prior to patch 1.something it used to be the mount which cost (for example) 80 gold and the training was cheap. When this was changed (and subsequently the riding skill was changed to be across the board for all mount types) it meant that mount collecting was within the reach of more than just a rich few.

Mounts are something which you can get by yourself, with a group and pvp-ing - they have been integrated into all the common aspects of the game and something relatively rare is available to pretty much any level of player. They are not just a creature / flying machine to get around on but, like our gear, are status symbols. They also have the added benefit of increasing individuality in a world where often everyone is wearing nearly the same thing within their class!

The Burning Collectors?

Burning Crusade has catapulted mount collecting to a whole new level, in my mind. Before TBC, you were limited to your faction’s mounts and even getting some of those were hard (Troll and Nelfen mounts come to mind). PvP ones weren’t so easy to get and there were only a few rare dropped mounts in high level instances / raids (Tiger and Raptor from ZG, Baron’s Mount from Stratholme).

Burning Crusade changed all of that. Blizzard seem to have tuned into the fact that mounts were coveted and people would grind / pay rather a lot for them. Ok, they knew this already but half of that was a speed issue. What they had discovered here was the fact that people would pay or grind for a visual change rather than just a speed one. TBC saw an explosion of mounting options, not to mention a whole new category added - flying mounts.

Netherwing drakes were some of the first previewed (or, at least, some analogue thereof - I think they used the old drake model for the announcement) and I was terribly excited at the thought of riding around on a huge dragon! It felt so damned fantasy. Then, when I finally got to Outland, (rerolled at the start of TBC, mind) I realised this was in no way my only option. They had added not only the drakes to the basic selection of gryphons / wyverns but also Nether Rays and a plethora of ground mounts.

The talbuk seems to have been a huge hit as do the Amani Bears and players seem to love the inclusion of the other low-drop-rate mounts (Anzu bird, Midnight, Phoenix, White Hawkstrider). For some reason people didn’t seem to ‘click’ so well with the Cenarion Expedition hippogryphs, but maybe their expense is why I see so few!

Of course, there was also the addition of new racial ground mounts - Elekk’s and Hawkstriders. Both seem to have taken some ribbing (eww ugly huge mount and chooocooobooo or chicken) but I think each has their own loyal supporters.

Back to the Future?
I’m shying away from writing anything about Wrath at the moment as I really don’t think it’s worth commenting on stuff which hasn’t even gotten past alpha yet and will likely change a whole lot but some of the things concerning mounts piqued my interest. The following quote comes from the official website, for instance.

“Certain types of vehicles and mounts can now carry passengers, making it possible for players to, for example, break a prisoner out of a tightly guarded compound by attempting a daring escape on horseback… Even beyond the ability for vehicles to hold passengers, Wrath of the Lich King introduces an aerial combat system that will add a new dimension to gameplay.”

Looking at this and thinking in general terms I was wondering how Wrath might affect the ‘mount scene’ and what the new tier of riding skill would give us. I had, at first, assumed that we’d simply been given a riding ‘pass’ to allow us to ride in Northrend - some crazy quest thought up by gnomes which meant we had to have some type of license. However, it seems the next ‘tier’ will be one which effects not only ourselves and our speed but also our gameplay. Mounts, in Wrath, seem to have become more integral to play than ever before.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what WotLK brings by way of new mounts looks-wise. I’ve seen pics here and there of polar/grizly bear mounts and zhevra mounts. Both of these would be awesome (I mean, c’mon, a dwarf on a bear? That right there is win) as would being able to ride those new Shovel Tusks - hell, I want to know why I couldn’t get a Clefthoof mount!

An awesome resource for mounts is Mania’s new project Warcraft Mounts. Go check it out and see if there’s anything you fancy working towards!