A word for reforging

So, there you are, a new piece of loot. You quickly equip it, and then you find out that you are below hit-cap. You think it over, and try to remember if you have another piece of gear in the bank to raise your hit cap again. But for now, you leave it unequipped. And a lot of times that new piece of loot stayed in our bank until we found another piece, to offset the hit-loss.

That's how we used to raid, before Cataclysm. But Cata introduced Reforging, and there was much rejoice. No longer would we need to leave new gear in the bank, because we needed that 'lesser' gear for a cap.  I don't remember hearing one voice that said; "Mmm, wait a minute..."

Now I must admit, that after the ICC-summer, my own theory crafting was low. I was not raiding, just playing around for fun. And I really liked the mantra; "..to change unwanted stats in wanted stats..". No more useless hit over the cap, no more useless crit as Boomkin (how things can change). 

Little did I foresee the snake that hissed below.

This snake actually wouldn't be much of a problem during Cata, maybe at the end. The stat-numbers where a lot lower, then now in Mists of Pandaria. In my memory, I did reforge, but not in excess. It would take a website called Ask Mr. Robot and the stat-increase from Mists to really rear its ugly head.

Up to this point there where some complaints about stupid reforging and using add-ons, and such, but the stat-numbers weren't that high to actually make much of a difference. But after a few bosses in Mogushan Vaults, when people where getting more purples, the complaints where rising, an they all where the same;

What happened was simple, you equipped your new piece of gear, checked MrRobot (or any other add-on), and you found out that you had to reforge at least 10 pieces of gear (not to mention gems/enchants), and all the rejoice was gone.  Reforging now became something to be afraid of. Every time I hit that optimise button, and only had to reforge 5 pieces of gear, a sigh of relieve escaped me.

So, when the news came that reforging would be gone, I didn't wept a tear about it, hurray no more endless hitting buttons to get you your caps/breakpoints. But in the past few months since that news, more news cam out, and I am starting to think that maybe axing reforge is actually not that needed.

Now why would I think that? Well, as mentioned before, it was introduced to change a 'lesser' stat for a 'better' stat. I think they even used the example back then about you really don't needing Crit, so why would you go for a Crit-piece, but now, you could change some crit to say, Haste, and it would not be absolutely bad. So more gear would be used. the problems where the caps/breakpoints.

As far as I know, there are no caps on Mastery, Spirit or Critical Strike. There maybe some caps on Dodge and Parry, but who cares, most Tanks don't actually go for those anymore, or the caps are out of reach (102.4% dodge anyone???). But Hit/Expertise (hard caps) and Haste (Breakpoints), now there is the problem... combine those three with the higher stat-ratings from Mists, and you have your problem.

The fun part is, that with Warlords of Draenor, all those caps and breakpoints will cease to exist. Dodge, Parry, Hit and Expertise will be gone as stats on gear, and the Damage-over-Time and Healing-over-Time effects will be changed such that the main Idea of Haste breakpoints (getting one more tick in) will be gone. Even the stat-increase will be lower because of the squishing of stats.

So why would you still need to remove Reforging, if all the things that actually made it bad, are removed? Couldn't we just keep it in, to actually do what it should have been doing, changing some of that unwanted mastery into crit? Now, it seems Blizzard is in this making-all-things-simpler-mode, less enchant/gems, so having an option open to change all your hear seems a little strange, but still, having an option to change a little bit of your gear seems to nice to throw away.

And then I am not even talking about spirit...  and I may be completely wrong about this, considering we have not yet much clue about how healing will be in Warlords, but in the past, all the first months of a new expansion were hard on healers. Not much regen of mana, so they were having mana-issues. With keeping Reforge in for spirit, healers could reforge to more spirit at the start of an expansion, and to less later...

And for that matter, Tanks could reforge more into their less-squishy-stat at the start of expansions, and dps into, well..dps maybe lucky then..  still, as a Boomkin I'd rather have crit then mastery, so even for dps it could mean a little.

I know this opens up a whole new aspect of reforging, to actually compensate for the lack of useable stats, because all stats are low. But wasn't this maybe one of the ideas why we all liked Reforge at the start of Cataclysm???

Maybe we should not throw away Reforge that easy, and with the announced changes, you actually only would need to change that One piece of gear that just dropped, and then only to make it better than it now is, so you could equip it right there, at the spot, without reforging, and reforge it later when you have time, to make yourself a little better. Which is what we all want?  Isn't it....?

SoO-Summer?

I remember it well... the long summer that blew over World of Warcraft after the Lich King was defeated. The csuffering of so many souls who where completely bored with current content, because the was no current content...  and in that darkness, bloggers united on a server called Argent Dawn, to form the guild, that did nothing, because we where to busy talking; Single Abstract Noun.

Now there are two things that made me do this post, first is logical. The current head lunatic of SAN-EU is taking a little break, and because we two knew each other from way back in Retribution, he asked me to hold the fort, so Gowron is now GM of SAN-EU, and I promptly did the first raid with Gowron since...well..I don't know...ICC I guess.

I am also doing the tournament dailies for the horsies and pets, and to be online more often. I have neglected my Horde-side for along time. The other part of this post is...well..terrifying. Maybe even more SAN-people will flock back to Argent Dawn..oh my.

Gowron and Immerseus

The problem is, that I foresee a new summer with no new content. Like with Wrath, this expansion was fairly quick. Within a year, the endboss was down, and we started to wait on the new expansion. Now, back then, I was not really actively raiding, but I did feel the slowlyness of it all, luckily I could go all Althoholic.

Now, with only two more levels to go on AD, what am I to do all summer.  Well..except that I can visit mountains in the UK, and there is a meet, and..oh.. ok, not maybe myself, but you get the idea.  Blizzard has been churning out patches and new content like crazy last 16 months, but now...  we have to wait..

In Innovation we already have felt the end-of-expansion-blues. Although we still raid 25's, the pace has died down a bit since the Garrosh Kills. People are taking, and I must say, well-deserved rests. But for those who still play...well..  we went from a fast pace killing normals, to about 1 HC boss/month..although last week, we did manage to down two new ones, both Galakras and Juggernaut went down.

In Cataclysm, Innovation downed HC-Deathwing 1 or 2 weeks before the pre-patch of Mists. And it at this moment we are on the same track, easily going on. Tonight is PacMan night (we skipped that sofar), but Innovation will raid on as the last 25 standing on the server if needed.

I don't know about the rest of Europe... but, if you ever feel like levelling a lowbie horde..and still have a place left on Argent dawn, well...

Outdated

The fun part, after a hiatus in blogging, is that you come back, and find some unfinished stuff...which is now outdated, in your concept-folders. You read through it... and with the information of the past two months, you throw it away with a smile. It reminds me of a saying under teachers: "The huge number of students we let fail with results that later where made true."

But before I dive back into writing, why did I stop for a while. Partly because of more hours on the Job, but most impartantly, I had to stop using my old Mac for raiding. Since 2008 I have been the owner of a MacBookPro, and because my PC back then was much slower, I started to use the mac for World of Warcraft, and it did well. It was alo easy to make movies. But that was 2008, it is now 2014. The Mac no longer has a functioning DVD-drive, the touchpad is broken, and the Vidoecard is hugely Outdated.

Now, I could still use it, but I had to put all video-settings on low, and still dropped down to single-digit-fps during raids.... and I got Headaches... which is actually biologially related. Your brain works on around 50fps. But if you watch something with lower FPS, your brain actually fills in the blanks. Most movies are 24fps (iirc), so if you watch those, your brain has to work, hence the 'tired'feeling after watching a movie or TV for a longer time.

Now, imagine watching a screen on 7 fps for about 4 hours (raiding time of Innovation), your brains has to so much work, that you will actually start suffering headaches. That was happening to me, I have had incidents where I actually had to walk away from the keyboard during bossfights due to headache-attacks.

So, after another gruesome heroic fight with protectors, with low fps, and a headache coming up, I took an immediate 'leave of absence' from raiding. Luckily, I also got the news that week that my contract was extended by a day each week, and with that information, I went shopping for a new PC.

It took me two weeks to decide what to buy. In the end I decided on selfbuild. After two weeks of non-raiding I was back in Siege, only missing the heroic kill of Norushen, and this time I could see stuff with higher settings, and higher fps, and more important, no more headaches (well..at least not related to low fps).

I also got myself fraps, windows-WoW has no built-in recording-option like The Mac-WoW had, and I wanted to record some movies again, and in the past four weeks I have been collecting lots of gigabytes to make into a general Innovation movie, so, here's the Teaser I guess :p

...wait? Four weeks...  couldn't I have written anything..well.. 

The problem with having a Mac as only computer is the lack of games.. so last weeks, all my free time actually went into discovering the games I missed. Most notably Civilization V and Star Trek Online. Also some Heartstone (free mount), World of tanks, World of warplanes and Starcraft passed along...  So many games... and then the Warlords of Destr..Draenor pre-order came...

I did not buy it yet, mostly because I have no Idea what to do with a fee level 90. I have only 2 levels to go before I am full 90 on Argent Dawn. And then I can buy more for 60 dollar, or 50 euro or something. Frankly I would rather have an Extra character slot on Argent Dawn, then a free 90..  and buying more 90's, not going to happen for me I think...

...now, buying an extra characterslot on Argent Dawn, I probably would go for that.

The levelling-game.

After a long journey, that started way back when Cataclysm was out for a few months, three dwarfs and two gnomes have finally reached their intended goal. Last monday, after a three-hour-run, they took the last hurdle, and took the last two levels. Class Act is now level 85.

Lurche reaching 85, the others followed fast.

The strange part is of course, that Innovation already has the Class Act-Achievement. When Class Act reached 50 orso, my own gnome rogue reached 85,  and others have made the extra bank-slot available long ago, but Class Act is sort of a different thing, having some fun with guilds in lower levels.  The point is to reach level 90 before WoD, which seems possible.....

Reaching level 85 on Lurche, also puts me on the last 5 levels I can get on Argent Dawn. And because Argent Dawn is a full server, there will be no connected realms, so no more character slots for me. Which is a shame, because I wouldn't mind levelling a new character in either Innovation, or Single Abstract Noun. And yes, I still find this somewhat unfair, the fact that some people can have more then 11 characters sending mail and stuff to each others, while others can't.

I know, that when WoD releases, I have another 110 levels to level, but speaking from experience, this is what probably will happen; Mardah (if that remains my raiding character), will be levelled to 100 a.s.a.p. Because they stated that Garrisons will be available at level 90, I will probably get all my Alliance alts there a.s.a.p., but the first month will be focused on Mardah, to get her ready for raiding, so getting reputation and gear and stuff. 

Somewhere three weeks in, I will start levelling one Alliance Character, and one Horde Character for the Lore. That means I will do every quest with them in all zones, so they will probably be enchanters to get stuff for enchanting (So, yes, Gowron). This will not be that fast, as I am still focused on Mardah. After a month or two I will have probably have three level 100's, or very close, and I start to think about which professions I really miss at 100, and I will then level 1 or 2 other characters.

Gowron preparing to slaughter Illidan...again

Now, while the first three characters that levelled had mostly no idea what was where considering quest, with number 4 and 5, I will probably know where to go. That kind of levelling goes fast for me. I just sit down for a day, and tick of the quests, racing around, and if it is a little bit like last time, those will be levelled in a month. So after three months, around the release of patch 6.1 I guess, I will have 5 lvl100's, and I probably do not want to level anything anymore for a month  :).

Because there is only so much different stuff you can do at max level, it will become boring again somewhere...and my addiction starts again.... but I really do not want to level through Old D. so soon, so I make an alt in Innovation to happily run around in lower levels to...oooh..wait.... no slots left, so I have to either level on a different server, and not with my friends!! (the catchphrase for WoD it seems), or delete a character. Yes I can also transfer a character... but that costs cash, which I don't seem to have much of these days :(

Oh...  and from experience, after transferring a character I almost don't play them anymore, because my friends (them again) are not there. There is the rare exception, when I just don't want be in Innovation, and I play somewhere else, but mostly transferred characters sit quietly on a sever, far far away. And yes, I cannot bring myself to delete those..  or any other char I played for a while.

Gowron getting his second OH-Glaive, which he still can't use.

So, I hope Blizzard will actually let go of the cap on characters per server. For players playing this game so long, it really starts to feel like a stupid cap now. And now you are also giving people a free 90, and possible the option to buy lvl90's. Yay, I get a free 90, mmm what should I do with that?

War stories : Return to Ogrimmar

It seemed like a lifetime ago she set foot in the city. She was barely of age when she joined the warriors of the Horde. She remembered it well, her first mission was to the other side of the world, the siege of Zul'Aman. How long was that ago? Three, or four years, and now she was back, but back to what?

She walked through the gate-buildings an looked out over the Valley of Strength. In the middle was a big pile of rubble, still smouldering of the fire it was destroyed by. She didn't remember the bank of Ogrimmar to be that big, so much had changed. She walked on, some of her people where scurrying along, but not many Orcs where around.

She had seen destruction before, and death of course. In the Zul'Aman campaign she didn't see much of the front, but after that, she was stationed at the Wrath Gate. She was their the day Arthas confronted the combined might of The Horde and the Alliance. She was their the day that the Forsaken betrayed The Horde, and she barely survived that ordeal.

Ogrimmar looked like it was completely sacked. The Alliance swarm had not shown much mercy to the Orcs who tried to defend their homes.She already knew what she was going to see, but still she walked through the valley towards the drag, towards her birthplace, towards where her family used to live.

There was some screaming coming from the Valley of Spirits, where the Trolls used to live. She heard reports the Trolls took back their islands a few years ago, and that most of them relocated there,  maybe the heart of The Horde would now be relocated there with her new Warchief. She didn't know if she was still part of The Horde, time would tell. A few Blood Elf guards halted her.

She had met Blood Elfs before, at Zul'Aman. They seemed a little fragile, but where not afraid to lead the battles fought, and now they where here in Ogrimmar, the remnants of the Regent's Army who fought in the rebellion against Garrosh, the deposed war chief. She gave her credentials to the guards.

They where written in the Sindorei-language, which she knew enough off to know what the letters said. This one has not fought for Garrosh, but also not against, she was not here when that all happened. She was on a ship, sailing from Northrend to Kalimdor when the Alliance and the Rebels defeated Garrosh. Why where they still called rebels?

Her batallion was stationed at Wyrmrest Temple after Deathwing assaulted the Dragons. They were there to guard, and to rebuild. She had worked with some dwarves there to secure the surroundings, and then the news came that a new Island was found, and that old wounds where torn open. They all had one more evening of comradery, the Orcs, Dwarves, Trolls, Draenai. Even the Gnomes where having fun, but the next day we all would be enemies again.

The guards let her continue into the Drag. It was completely ravaged and burned out. Everything had to be rebuild. All the houses, all the stores, everything gone. The Alliance really sacked this place. She headed towards the Valley of Honor, one of the places the Alliance didn't breached she heard. Maybe it was better there.

She was not sure if Garrosh was making the right decisions, but he was the Warchief, he should be followed. Like Thrall before him, the Orcs went where their Warchief went, no questions asked. But although Wyrmrest was far from the new Island, rumours started dripping in. The biggest shock was news that the Troll leader was openly revolting against his Warchief, and that both the noble Tauren and the Blood Elves seemed to join Vol'Jin, was this the end of the Horde?

Skirmishes broke out between the different races around Wyrmrest, and she and her kin seemed to be standing alone. One night a big brawl ended with several deaths, and the Horde commanders decided that it was best for the Orcs to leave. She was put on a ship towards Ogrimmar, under command of a Blood Elf Regiment. Or was that as prisoner?

She looked out over the Valley of Honor. It was always crowded there, but now there where tents everywhere. The stench of people packed up to close to each other was overwhelming. Near the gate was a tent where medics where doing their job, while dead orcs where still being taken away. A little bit further, children where playing in the water, while Orc warriors sat around campfires.

She looked back to the gate, a number of Tauren Warriors stood guard, both to keep people out and in. So, this is what her people were now, refugees in their own city.

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.

Sssh... they are listening.

Well, well, well, the NSA is listening into us?  Panic, no, run, stop...STOP

Apart from the fact that this was already known, what did you expect?

I think of myself as a reasonable person who does not go into panic mode easily, so the moment all that snowden-stuff started to pour out, I was like...meh, what did you expect?

And now the snowden-files leaked that the NSA is in World of Warcraft.. so what?

I never really understood all the Rukus about this. The only thing that changed is that there is evidence now, it's like everyone just had their eyes closed for years, and is now starting to see. I don't get that, I already suspected for years that everything on the internet is being watched, and with suspecting, I mean 99% sure.

I can see that it might be a problem...  actually I can't. There is no way I will start to freak out because some dude somewhere in the US, or for that matter the Netherlands knows what I did last saturday on the web  (hint, it was probably killing internet dragons), I have enough other things in my head, so I don't want to start worrying about that, have fun with that knowledge.. as if that guy..or girl...  would remember that...

...and if they did, well, they can't say it, can't they...  and every time I see a news message about the NSA spying on Merkel, or the BBC, be sure that your government either knows about it, or is also spying on the US.

And for the NSA-employees that are assigned to play this World of Warcraft game in search of potential hazards to the United States of America or her Allies, have fun...  and what is your progress by the way... on raids, not on finding terrorists...