Firstly, Yes it's April Fools Day. No, this post is not anything of that nature. :) I do apologise for the the rambling and grumbling nature of it but for anyone looking for actual content, it should fit that bill, even if not related to Healing :)
I have a few frustrations in the way that farming works in the game at the moment - none of them are large things, but they cumulatively annoy me, especially given the amount of time I waste, er, spend on farming.
The first one is just a pain and is more so given that doesn't function the way the rest of the game world works - if you are mounted, and you move in range of most gathering nodes, you click on the node and you dismount. On your farm, and only on your farm, you have to manually dismount before gathering.
Next on my list of petty annoyances is the Work Orders - or more particularly, the way that Bursting crops interact with the Work Orders. If you plant your eight veggies, and none of them are bursting, then you come back the next day, harvest all eight, and turn in your quest. However, if you do have one or more bursting crops, and harvest them, you don't receive credit as it hasn't ticked over to the next day. Which means you need to buy more seeds and plants more of the same crops for no reason than to fill out your work order. As long as you harvest the crop after you plant it (usually the next day), why have an artificial barrier like needing it to be the next day?
Depending on when you play, or more precisely when you play in relation to your server time, you may never encounter my next issues. If you play on a US time-stamped server such as Shadow Council, and happen to live in Oz, then depending on the particular part of the Daylight Savings roundabout, dailies reset around 10pm. Crops don't. So making sure that you have the right crop planted for a bonus harvest, or getting your work orders harvested and credit for them can be a right royal pain in the proverbial. Why can't crops ripen at the same time that dailies reset so that both of these little things would be resolved?
Monday, April 1, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Leaving weekly LFR as late as possible
I have moaned and whinged with various other bloggers about the chances of getting decent LFR runs towards the end of the week.
Last night, a bare couple of hours before the reset, I unexpectedly had some time so thought that I would run one or two just to see if I could get one of those missing pieces that would put me over the iLevel for the new LFR wing. I went into it with very low expectations but for once, was pleasantly surprised. I picked up new hands (replacing one of my blue 463 bits), ran through two full wings plus a bonus Sha of Fear only run, and had very little hassles.
There was a wipe or two, but in the main people were generally reasonable and did enough to kill bosses without making the healers scream too loudly. I could theorise that over the weekend is a bad time as all sorts of randoms try to get their LFR done, whereas late Tuesday afternoon it is mostly people who know what they are doing and need to cap valor or want quick runs and have the skill to back that up. Of course, with a sample size of 1, that's a pretty long bow to draw. :D
The most amusing part was when one Huntard went AFK after a wipe, for a good 5 minutes, then essentially tried to justify his position on the basis that he had a long queue time, needed a bio break, we should all get over it as it was only LFR and that we should be waiting for him. So, after a few comments that may have cast doubt on the validity of his arguments ... (OK, he got royally flamed by multiple people), Some bright spark who may have had a short fuse and may or may not have been the only Mistweaver in the raid :D suggested that if he needed time for a break, we should be considerate and give him time. So we booted him so that he could take as long as he wanted, to general merriment. :D
Last night, a bare couple of hours before the reset, I unexpectedly had some time so thought that I would run one or two just to see if I could get one of those missing pieces that would put me over the iLevel for the new LFR wing. I went into it with very low expectations but for once, was pleasantly surprised. I picked up new hands (replacing one of my blue 463 bits), ran through two full wings plus a bonus Sha of Fear only run, and had very little hassles.
There was a wipe or two, but in the main people were generally reasonable and did enough to kill bosses without making the healers scream too loudly. I could theorise that over the weekend is a bad time as all sorts of randoms try to get their LFR done, whereas late Tuesday afternoon it is mostly people who know what they are doing and need to cap valor or want quick runs and have the skill to back that up. Of course, with a sample size of 1, that's a pretty long bow to draw. :D
The most amusing part was when one Huntard went AFK after a wipe, for a good 5 minutes, then essentially tried to justify his position on the basis that he had a long queue time, needed a bio break, we should all get over it as it was only LFR and that we should be waiting for him. So, after a few comments that may have cast doubt on the validity of his arguments ... (OK, he got royally flamed by multiple people), Some bright spark who may have had a short fuse and may or may not have been the only Mistweaver in the raid :D suggested that if he needed time for a break, we should be considerate and give him time. So we booted him so that he could take as long as he wanted, to general merriment. :D
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Capping VP, MORE dailies, Monk nerfs
I tried, I really have. This week, I wanted to cap my VP. I wanted to prove to myself that I could, that I could fit in the things I wanted to do and also be able to keep my character as current as possible. And I failed, dismally.
I tried to do the new dailies (right, so everyone complains about the amount of dailies in the expansion and they add more in 5.1 and yet more again in 5.2 ... Yep, I see the sense in that!), ended up doing them three or four times. I did the Shado Pan dailies a couple of times, some randoms, and 3 chunks of LFR. which all netted me something in the order of 700 VP.
This was a pretty normal week really, if anything I spent more time playing than I would on a normal weekend (whatever normal is these days). It reaffirms the decision I made about stopping raiding. I am sick of the new dailies already, and my DK, who could happily gear up via instances will not have any of the rep to spend VP on anyway. When I haven't even finished the major factions dailies on the Monk I certainly can't even consider the pain of doing them again with the DK.
Then, to add to my sour mood with WoW generally, the 5.2 changes have meant that Chi spending for a ranged Mistweaver is severely crippled. Yes, I know that the monk is meant to be a melee healer, but I was enjoying the class while healing from range. My situational awareness is just not good enough to be in melee range all the time, especially and heal as well.
I'm going to have to relearn my methods or spending Chi (which may or may not give me enough mana for longer fights), learn to heal in range, or give up all the work I have put into the Monk since the beta and switch back to another class. I have really enjoyed the monk class, more than I have the Pally for many moons, but now ... when I run out of mana in LFR? It's like bit at a time my enjoyment of the game is decreasing. At some point, the balance will tip ... and then ... well, the path to unsubscription looms.
I tried to do the new dailies (right, so everyone complains about the amount of dailies in the expansion and they add more in 5.1 and yet more again in 5.2 ... Yep, I see the sense in that!), ended up doing them three or four times. I did the Shado Pan dailies a couple of times, some randoms, and 3 chunks of LFR. which all netted me something in the order of 700 VP.
This was a pretty normal week really, if anything I spent more time playing than I would on a normal weekend (whatever normal is these days). It reaffirms the decision I made about stopping raiding. I am sick of the new dailies already, and my DK, who could happily gear up via instances will not have any of the rep to spend VP on anyway. When I haven't even finished the major factions dailies on the Monk I certainly can't even consider the pain of doing them again with the DK.
Then, to add to my sour mood with WoW generally, the 5.2 changes have meant that Chi spending for a ranged Mistweaver is severely crippled. Yes, I know that the monk is meant to be a melee healer, but I was enjoying the class while healing from range. My situational awareness is just not good enough to be in melee range all the time, especially and heal as well.
I'm going to have to relearn my methods or spending Chi (which may or may not give me enough mana for longer fights), learn to heal in range, or give up all the work I have put into the Monk since the beta and switch back to another class. I have really enjoyed the monk class, more than I have the Pally for many moons, but now ... when I run out of mana in LFR? It's like bit at a time my enjoyment of the game is decreasing. At some point, the balance will tip ... and then ... well, the path to unsubscription looms.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Enjoying WoW again
Burnout seems to be a much more talked about topic this expansion - apart from my rantings, WoW Insider and Navi have been talking about it, and thats just the two most recent I have seen.
Once I made that decision to take a break from raiding (and realistically, that isn't going to change in the forseeable future), I have been enjoying WoW much more. I have been able to do whatever I have wanted to, without beating myself up about the lack of dailies or LFR or whatever on the Monk. In fact the Monk hasn't set foot outside Halfhill since that post. I have farmed most days on the DK, and leveled by hunter through much of L85 in the Jade Forest, as well as the Pally a little.
I have done a little pet battling, a little of this, a little of that. I log on and WoW is again that release, that escape, rather than another job that I am avoiding and need doing. The only negative was that I saw that @Corveroth had updated his awesome TheAlternative addon and had to log on to check some of the fixes ... Only to find two different friends I hadn't seen online in ages and that I couldn't talk to as it was literally a log in, log out session. I'll catch up with them both at some point, when our schedule and playtime allow. - What I can do now is to take that time to chat with friends, rather than trying to run a dungeon, or LFR or something productive at the same time. I can sit in SW and reorganise one of my toons banks , or herb, or jsut do nothing at all and just enjoy the chatting. I am looking forward to putting more time into the relationships I have in WoW, rather than to the game itself.
Once I made that decision to take a break from raiding (and realistically, that isn't going to change in the forseeable future), I have been enjoying WoW much more. I have been able to do whatever I have wanted to, without beating myself up about the lack of dailies or LFR or whatever on the Monk. In fact the Monk hasn't set foot outside Halfhill since that post. I have farmed most days on the DK, and leveled by hunter through much of L85 in the Jade Forest, as well as the Pally a little.
I have done a little pet battling, a little of this, a little of that. I log on and WoW is again that release, that escape, rather than another job that I am avoiding and need doing. The only negative was that I saw that @Corveroth had updated his awesome TheAlternative addon and had to log on to check some of the fixes ... Only to find two different friends I hadn't seen online in ages and that I couldn't talk to as it was literally a log in, log out session. I'll catch up with them both at some point, when our schedule and playtime allow. - What I can do now is to take that time to chat with friends, rather than trying to run a dungeon, or LFR or something productive at the same time. I can sit in SW and reorganise one of my toons banks , or herb, or jsut do nothing at all and just enjoy the chatting. I am looking forward to putting more time into the relationships I have in WoW, rather than to the game itself.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
End of Week LFR. Again
In a mad panic that 5.2 might drop and the few pieces of better-than-LFR gear that I have might not be upgraded, I hurled myself into LFR on Monday. Probably not the best thing for my sanity, but it was definitely amusing.
Zoned into first half of Mog Vaults, about to pull final boss. Easy 90 VP. no great hassle. Zoned in to second half of Mog Vaults, to find that they were already pulling the boss and I was locked out. So, without casting a single spell, I got 90 Valor for that one too.
Just as well that I was only in it for VP and giggles rather than gear! Flushed with my success (lol) I endured the next section of LFR with many many fail people, and fail things. Pulls with dead people, idiots not doing what they were meant to, typical LFR really. This culminated with the pull for Zor'lok having 6 people including a tank dead from trash as the boss was pulled. *sigh* And Tam called LFD the sanity tap!
The the hoity-toity Priest who had done 25% of the healing for the fight started snarking about how the healers weren't doing their job. Well, a Shammy and I made up the only significant healing below him, but I'd say we were both puling our weight or more. As to the rest, I can only hope he meant them. It was, however more VP in the bank and far easier for me to drop group when the group had completed than argue with him - I mean, it's well known that arguing with a fool drags you down to the lowest common denominator and people might not know the difference!
On unrelated matters, my DK, having hit 90 only a week ago, has already maxed out his Tillers rep and is now happily farming his 16 plots, and I started leveling my Pally. ... And my Hunter. :) Altaholics FTW.
Zoned into first half of Mog Vaults, about to pull final boss. Easy 90 VP. no great hassle. Zoned in to second half of Mog Vaults, to find that they were already pulling the boss and I was locked out. So, without casting a single spell, I got 90 Valor for that one too.
Just as well that I was only in it for VP and giggles rather than gear! Flushed with my success (lol) I endured the next section of LFR with many many fail people, and fail things. Pulls with dead people, idiots not doing what they were meant to, typical LFR really. This culminated with the pull for Zor'lok having 6 people including a tank dead from trash as the boss was pulled. *sigh* And Tam called LFD the sanity tap!
The the hoity-toity Priest who had done 25% of the healing for the fight started snarking about how the healers weren't doing their job. Well, a Shammy and I made up the only significant healing below him, but I'd say we were both puling our weight or more. As to the rest, I can only hope he meant them. It was, however more VP in the bank and far easier for me to drop group when the group had completed than argue with him - I mean, it's well known that arguing with a fool drags you down to the lowest common denominator and people might not know the difference!
On unrelated matters, my DK, having hit 90 only a week ago, has already maxed out his Tillers rep and is now happily farming his 16 plots, and I started leveling my Pally. ... And my Hunter. :) Altaholics FTW.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
PvP Pet Battling is very broken
After taking days to realise that TotA gave me such an awesome present of a Pandaren Earth Spirit, the least that I could do was to level the little guy (RP post on that incoming at some point). So I went and gathered up the remaining rare I needed from Valley, almost all the ones I needed from Towong and the Summit and he hit 25! As noted by Navi, remembering to put ones Safari Hat on BEFORE such an endeavor would be sensible, but ah well.
I cleaned up a couple more pet achievements in the process, and started working on the PvP battles. As I didn't want to take on some super-awesome battler, I decided to start with some level 1 pets. All nice and relatively even, no nasty power moves, all good. I will admit that I carefully went through my pet journal looking for the best level 1 pets I had, but at least level 1 is level 1 ... Except it isn't. My first match, I was up against 1 x L3 and 2 x L2 pets. all had their next tier of moves, more attack, more speed and way more health.
When there are only 25 pet levels, and you get new skills especially at 2, that is ridiculous. Guaranteed loss, no matter how good I am. That isn't fun, fair or in any way conducive to keeping going. I'd rather be in the battle queue longer than have such wildly unmatched games. Knowing you will lose before you even start is never going to be good.
I thought, OK, lets up the pets a little. I picked the same level pets that had been against me, and queued again. Rinse and repeat, though this time I was up against 1 x L4 and 2 x L3. Another completely pointless exercise. I kept the same team and queued one final time, when I got some poor guy who had 3 x L1's like I had in the first match. Naturally enough, I whupped him, but that was not due to any skill on my part, purely because the system is so bad.
I'm not doing any more PvP battles while the system is so screwed up. Which is a shame as the pitting of your skills against another real person without the need to have full PvP gear would be great.
I cleaned up a couple more pet achievements in the process, and started working on the PvP battles. As I didn't want to take on some super-awesome battler, I decided to start with some level 1 pets. All nice and relatively even, no nasty power moves, all good. I will admit that I carefully went through my pet journal looking for the best level 1 pets I had, but at least level 1 is level 1 ... Except it isn't. My first match, I was up against 1 x L3 and 2 x L2 pets. all had their next tier of moves, more attack, more speed and way more health.
When there are only 25 pet levels, and you get new skills especially at 2, that is ridiculous. Guaranteed loss, no matter how good I am. That isn't fun, fair or in any way conducive to keeping going. I'd rather be in the battle queue longer than have such wildly unmatched games. Knowing you will lose before you even start is never going to be good.
I thought, OK, lets up the pets a little. I picked the same level pets that had been against me, and queued again. Rinse and repeat, though this time I was up against 1 x L4 and 2 x L3. Another completely pointless exercise. I kept the same team and queued one final time, when I got some poor guy who had 3 x L1's like I had in the first match. Naturally enough, I whupped him, but that was not due to any skill on my part, purely because the system is so bad.
I'm not doing any more PvP battles while the system is so screwed up. Which is a shame as the pitting of your skills against another real person without the need to have full PvP gear would be great.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
No more raiding for me
Life is just getting too darn full. Now without question, it is my own choice to study (and International Financial Management is going to suck badly this session, but it is a core subject I have to do), my choice to have a social life, to run, and to volunteer for the community, all in addition to family and work responsibilities. But I realise that I can't do everything. I still can't come at the amount of dailies that I should be doing on the Monk - I have rep I have barely started, I don't even run all the LFRs every week.
Realistically I should be spending less time, not more in Azeroth, and the time I spend I want to be able to enjoy and not feel guilty over. WoW is my relax time. I know that I posted about the way that the guild raid schedule and mine no longer met, but to be truthful, I haven't raided since November, only a couple of times this expansion in fact, and I don't feel right to have the guild try to keep a raid spot for me (undergeared and underprepared as I am and will get worse) or to try to fit raid days around me.
I made the decision to officially take a break from raiding and posted that to the guild forums. No, I don't plan to stop blogging on either blog (Just hit over 300 posts here BTW), or being active on Twitter (also 300 tweets coincidentally). I certainly don't plan to stop playing. I just need to be realistic and WoW just isn't as far up there on my priorities any more. (He says as he writes a WoW blog post and compulsively alt-tabs back to the client every 10 seconds to see if the servers are up after maintenance, LOL).
In some ways the new raid nights have been a good thing because I have not had to leave the guild in the lurch as I certainly would have with the amount I have on. It feels strange though - rarely raiding is one thing, but when you can kid yourself that it is through no fault of your own it seems better than when you face up to the fact that you can't justify your raid spot. As a raid leader, would I keep a spot for me, knowing that I don't do everything I can or even close? Knowing that I spent all day Saturday leveling my DK because I could, and did 1 Heroic and one part of LFR on the Monk? I don't think I have capped valor one week since the Monk hit 90. So I made the call, knowing it is better for everyone to make a decision rather than mess around and half do things. Sorry Southern Cross, it's not you, it's me ... :D
Realistically I should be spending less time, not more in Azeroth, and the time I spend I want to be able to enjoy and not feel guilty over. WoW is my relax time. I know that I posted about the way that the guild raid schedule and mine no longer met, but to be truthful, I haven't raided since November, only a couple of times this expansion in fact, and I don't feel right to have the guild try to keep a raid spot for me (undergeared and underprepared as I am and will get worse) or to try to fit raid days around me.
I made the decision to officially take a break from raiding and posted that to the guild forums. No, I don't plan to stop blogging on either blog (Just hit over 300 posts here BTW), or being active on Twitter (also 300 tweets coincidentally). I certainly don't plan to stop playing. I just need to be realistic and WoW just isn't as far up there on my priorities any more. (He says as he writes a WoW blog post and compulsively alt-tabs back to the client every 10 seconds to see if the servers are up after maintenance, LOL).
In some ways the new raid nights have been a good thing because I have not had to leave the guild in the lurch as I certainly would have with the amount I have on. It feels strange though - rarely raiding is one thing, but when you can kid yourself that it is through no fault of your own it seems better than when you face up to the fact that you can't justify your raid spot. As a raid leader, would I keep a spot for me, knowing that I don't do everything I can or even close? Knowing that I spent all day Saturday leveling my DK because I could, and did 1 Heroic and one part of LFR on the Monk? I don't think I have capped valor one week since the Monk hit 90. So I made the call, knowing it is better for everyone to make a decision rather than mess around and half do things. Sorry Southern Cross, it's not you, it's me ... :D
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