WoD: Wait..what now?

I have been pointed out that my postwriting was down again...  and there is a simple reason for that, too much information which is actually no infarmation at all.  I have several unfinished posts now, something that has not happened before.

Normally I start writing, and I have a post, now I have several starts (including a RP-story even) but no endings. And I figured out why, every post is connected to each other (well, except the RP- story then). So, lets start with something..  the news that WoD heroics will be more heroic again maybe?  Time for a confession:

I liked the TBC-heroic concept.

Think about it. Before you could run heroics, you had to do the normals. You needed to be revered with the dungeon-faction to actually do the heroic version, which meant you had to run the dungeon several times before doing the heroic version, so everyone who could do it, actually knew what was going on.

Now the whole rep-thing was tiresome, but back then they didn't do in Ilvl-gating. The problem with Ilvl-gating is that you can 'fake' your Ilvl, especially if you are a Plate-user. Every item in your bags which you can equip counts towards your Ilvl, so a 522-coth belt would count higher as a 450-platebelt for a plate-user...  seems odd, but that's how it is.

Maybe they should include the MagT-idea again, no doing heroic dungeons, before you do the normal one, and you have to have a certain Ilv.

And there seems to be another little problem, the length of heroics, Shadow Labs Heroic anyone?

I liked Shadow Lab heroics....  I loathed magister terrace though..

A common thing I read and hear that no one wants that again, because it takes to much time...so, don't do them I would say. This idea that everyone seems to have, that even the most casual player who can only play 2 hours a week should be able to do the same as a hardcore player who plays 20 hours a week is ridiculous.

Oh wait, they actually can...  just not in the same time period. In my opinion normal dungeons and LFR's should be short and quick, for the casuals with not much time. Heroics/Flex etcetera for people with more time. I want more longer BRD-kinda dungeons to explore, which take time to do...

Oh, and I see Mythical dungeons coming, heroics scaled up in a later patch, so we cannot steamroll them.

The downfall of chickens?

At this moment I am running around 4 characters between level 63 and 73. On disc/shadowpriest, and 3 tanks, a warrior, a paladin and a dw-frost dk. And I have noticed something that will not be good for the future...

I am, by all means, A TBC-child. I started around 2 months after TBC came out. One thing that was hammered down my throat was, let tank pull, unless he asks other wise (sheep-pulls anyone). A lot of people seem to be forgetting that these days, they just expect tanks to taunt of them, and get angry when you don't... /facepalm.

And then there's the constant AoE-spam that makes my screen light up. Most often casted before the tank has made any AoE-threat, or just a little... and then all the mobs start running to you... geesh, how can that happen?

Now the worst example of this are lazor-chickens. Not all of course, but a lot of them. They have three spells to use in dungeons it seems. Hurricane, Starfall and that knockback thingie, typhoon. A common scenario follows...

I run in, target secondary mob, fire of a spell, target primary target... ooh, falling stars... %$#@, use way to many spells with to few resources at my disposal, while the hurricane-spam is started. Chicken gets aggro (no barkskin whatsoever), and after 10 long seconds I finally have all the mobs back where I want them..... knockback... AAAAAARGH.

Now of course, chickens are a prime example, but I have some very bad feelings about the cata-dungeons. It is said that people actually have to think... O_o. Time for another example... Blood Furnace, the SECOND dungeon you encounter in Outlands.. just before the end, there are some packs with large demons. Do you know what they do?

Well, let's see what happens, tank pulls, 2 demons are hitting tank. All of a sudden one of the demons runs to a party-member 25 or so yards back, and stays there.... tank turns around, hits/taunts the demon back, and then the other one does the same. Healer is healing everywhere, but, no problems the group gets them down. Next pack is two of the same demon, and a warlock. Where do you think the ranged is going to stand?

Most of the time I even say, hug tank/demon, but no.... why listen to the healer/tank who gives a tip... oh, and remember the spell starfall... have fun with 2 warlocks summoning all kind of beasties, and 6 mobs charging every way, and not bothering to check who their angry at....

So, if cataclysm actually demands 3/3 in Common Sense, how will 60% of the players, the ones standing in the green, not learning from mob-abilities, etc., handle those dungeons. And how will the 40% sane-people handle it?

How will I handle it? I think guild-dungeons are back, and the LFD will die...
well, until we all overgear the places again, and AoE everything down.

The return of the.... CC?

Sometimes your mind wanders, tinkers about something. I read Rigtheous Orbs, which is about hard dungeons, and remembered the days of CC, which for a Tankadin stands for Continuous Consecration (although Cons. is a lot less usefull these days), but for the rest it means Crowd Control.

Crowd Control, the tool to keep enemy mobs out of combat for a while, while the party butchered his comrades. Doing this will decrease damage on the tank, and keep the fight 'tidy'. And you needed to mark the stuff, anybody remember these?:


And remember what they stood for?

Skull - First Target
Cross - Second Target
Square - Trap (Hunter)
Triangle - Sap (Rogue)
Moon - Sheep (Mage)... or penguin/turtle, whatever...
Star - Shackle (Priest)
Circle - Banish (Warlock)

Yes, that's how we did it before Wrath, mark mobs, and everyone knew what to do. If you where a mage, and you saw a moon appearing on a mob, you knew what to do. And you'd better knew how to chain-trap as hunter :). Now my current experience in Wrath is, that when you actually put a skull on a mob, it probably dies last ???

I don't get this. If the Tank actually 'wastes' time to put a mark on something, there probably is a reason. He/she may have bad experiences with that mob before, he knows the mob has a dangerous ability, or maybe his threat-generation isn't that high, who knows... and who cares... just Blizzard,Hurricane,Hellfire away... NO, oops, I didn't mean that. FTLoG, please focus fire the skull down, and then go your merry way with AoE. There's a reason for that skull, don't question it, just do it...

Now, back to CC, or better what CC's are out there, and I am going to ignore short spells, we want to take a mob out of combat for at least 15 seconds.

Druid: Hibernate,Entangling Roots
Hunter: Freezing Trap, [Wyvern Sting]
Mage: Polymorph
Paladin: [Repentance]
Priest: Shackle Undead,Mind Control
Rogue: Sap
Shaman: Hex
Warlock: Banish, Enslave Demon, Seduction
Warrior: none
Death Knight: none

I know there also are other options to control mobs. A rogue could stunlock a mob (but preventing the rogue from doing dps), and mobs can be chain-feared by several classes, but as you know, fearing is something you should refrain from in most dungeons, you know why, don't you??? And there are some spells which are spec-specific (wyvern sting/repentance) so not all of that class may have them. And of course they all break on damage.

As you can see, there are a lot of CC's, some are mob-specific, like Shackle Undead, but it seems to me, that a reasonable balanced group at least has 2 CC's to choose from. And as mentioned by our favorite Crab, we will need them again in Cataclysm. So start using them again, pull them out of your spellbook, on to your hotbars.

Now hope you don't get a group with 2 DK's, 2 Warriors and a Holy Paladin.... then yer screwed, lass.

How not to Halls of Lightning

Sometimes you get real beautiful PuG's.

Halls of Lightning

First Boss:
He has an aggro-range of miles, so by all means healer, go stand there, and pull him. Oh, you only have 5% health left, while the rest needs healing due to Whirlwind... luckily I have lay on hands.

Just after that:
Slags, run through them, round them up, and to be sure, Divine Protection... and yes mage, healers and DK, by all means stand right besides me.... rez-rez-rez....

Just after second boss:
Healer is Shammie, where are my Tremors???

Third Boss:
You know dispers? Well, healer+DK, by all means, don't run... activate DP, use trinket, use Nightmare Seed (yes, I still have some), kill boss. Rez...rez.. oh healer already ran in.

Whirlwinding trash
Bye DK

Lokem:
Oh yes healer+mage, by no means stand close.... LoH the healer, mage dead, healer drops group before ressing, probably because of the 'WTF no heals' from the mage.

Well, at least I was not bored :)