I've been reading a few forums to catch up on how heroics and other fine PVE aspects of the game are going. What I was looking for was strategies on how to tank this and how to tank that, but what I did find was what appears to be alot of crying and head bashing about how hard it all is. Maybe crying is a bit much, but it appears that there is alot of struggling (especially with healers going OOM) in these new heroics.
I haven't participated in any heroics mostly because my gear level prevents me from that embarrassment (currently you need a gear level of 329 and I'm right at 324). Therefore, I have no idea how hard these places are. It does tell me that even after I hit a gear level of 329, I should continue to run the regular versions of the heroics until I understand how to tank these places.
And when I get to do heroics, I hope they stay HARD. That's the base definition of "HEROIC" mode. HEROIC = HARD. I'm glad because maybe this will refine the player base into being better so when raid fights like the Lich King pop up, people know of the situation awareness of the fight as well all the abilities of their character.
Overall, I value this system over the Wrath style heroics because I don't want the PuG headaches from immature and unknowledgeable players.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Belated Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Yep, I'm late as usual and I have no news regarding WoW. I played for a couple of hours last Thursday, but that was it. I was hosting my parents over the holiday weekend and that my friends, did not allow for alot of gaming time.
Hopefully, I'll have more to report over this next week.
Yep, I'm late as usual and I have no news regarding WoW. I played for a couple of hours last Thursday, but that was it. I was hosting my parents over the holiday weekend and that my friends, did not allow for alot of gaming time.
Hopefully, I'll have more to report over this next week.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Just in time for the holidays
You all may wonder where the name of my druid came from, Baconette.
Well it's a long story and it goes back to a friend of mine who was a US Naval Corpsman with the Marines as was I. Someday I'll have to delve into why the Marines don't have their own medical personnel, or medical transport vehicles, or chaplains, but that day can't be today. Plus I'm getting off track.
My character used to be named Baconstrip. I love the name and still do, but in transferring servers I found the name was owned by some level 13 undead rogue. So I thought, "If I'm changing my name, why not go for it all?" So Baconstrip had a sex change to go along with the name. Hence, Baconette. Plus, nothing is cooler that a hot female night elf, transforming into a bear/cat to rip your face off.
Now where is this taking us in terms of the title? Hold on, I'm getting there.
See, I have a love for bacon. It accentuates burgers, steaks, and shellfish. Hell it even makes non-salad eating people eat a salad once in a while. It's awesome. Big Bear Butt over at http://www.thebigbear.com/ calls it "meat candy". He even did a post on National Bacon Day, Happy National Bacon Day.
So in killing some time last night waiting for my queue position on KT to wind down, I did a search on bacon and bacon gifts (yeah, I'm that odd). Sure other guys would be googling Christina Hendricks, or setting up their fantasy teams for the end of the season. But not me. I had to find some obscure thing to look up and I have to say, I found it. Here are some of the best bacon gifts, Gifts for bacon lovers .
I have to say the bacon flavored floss and toothpicks are great. I could even see a bacon scented air freshner in my truck. But I'm not too sure I could do the bacon scented soap. I may never get my dog to leave me alone.
Until later, may your Christmas be safe, fun, and full of bacon.
Well it's a long story and it goes back to a friend of mine who was a US Naval Corpsman with the Marines as was I. Someday I'll have to delve into why the Marines don't have their own medical personnel, or medical transport vehicles, or chaplains, but that day can't be today. Plus I'm getting off track.
My character used to be named Baconstrip. I love the name and still do, but in transferring servers I found the name was owned by some level 13 undead rogue. So I thought, "If I'm changing my name, why not go for it all?" So Baconstrip had a sex change to go along with the name. Hence, Baconette. Plus, nothing is cooler that a hot female night elf, transforming into a bear/cat to rip your face off.
Now where is this taking us in terms of the title? Hold on, I'm getting there.
See, I have a love for bacon. It accentuates burgers, steaks, and shellfish. Hell it even makes non-salad eating people eat a salad once in a while. It's awesome. Big Bear Butt over at http://www.thebigbear.com/ calls it "meat candy". He even did a post on National Bacon Day, Happy National Bacon Day.
So in killing some time last night waiting for my queue position on KT to wind down, I did a search on bacon and bacon gifts (yeah, I'm that odd). Sure other guys would be googling Christina Hendricks, or setting up their fantasy teams for the end of the season. But not me. I had to find some obscure thing to look up and I have to say, I found it. Here are some of the best bacon gifts, Gifts for bacon lovers .
I have to say the bacon flavored floss and toothpicks are great. I could even see a bacon scented air freshner in my truck. But I'm not too sure I could do the bacon scented soap. I may never get my dog to leave me alone.
Until later, may your Christmas be safe, fun, and full of bacon.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Next Grind
I hit level 85 late Saturday night. As usual, I was pretty far behind a majority of the people on the server. I don't mind. To me the race isn't in what order you finished, it's how you finished. I really enjoyed the quest lines throughout (though Deepholm has alot of *bleh* for me) and it made the journey to 85 quite enjoyable.
I still have quests left in The Twilight Highlands to finish out and Mount Hyjal has been untouched by Bacon Paws. So there's that little action item on my ToDo list. However, those areas (especially the Twight Highlands) have been bumped down a notch so I can start my next grind.
Another grind? Yep you heard that right. For the head and shoulder enchants in the game, the best ones are from the Earthen Ring and Therazane, respectively. Both have tabards and daily quests. So which one should I do first? It really came down to a coin toss for me and as fate would have it, looks like I'm going back to Deepholm for the Therazane rep. Oh well, at least I'll be done with it in a couple of weeks (I hope). I'm pretty sure that I can reach exalted with these guys considering I'll be wearing their tabard in heroics and the added bonus of them having 5 daily quests. Aside from them having the shoulder enchant (
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62374 - Sly Fox Jerkin). Honored shouldn't be too hard to attain since I haven't yet quested over there. This is something I definitely want to start on in addition to the daily quests for Therazane.
Now getting honored with the Guardians of Hyjal has a spiffy chest piece (
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/11/30/shifting-perspectives-patch-4-0-3a-and-the-road-to-85/).
Since I've ventured over to the realm of gear by talking about the chest piece and rings, I might as touch a bit on the gear grind. Yes there's a gear requirement for entering heroics through the Looking for Group tool. Back in Wrath it wasn't uncommon to find yourself in a pug with a tank lacking defense or stamina, or a DPS pulling 700 DPS (if you're lucky). I know these scenarios quite well since my former life was a healer in Wrath and The Burning Crusade. There were a number of daily pug heroics that I had carried a tank through or suffered an agonizing long DPS fight with poor DPS. So I welcome the new gear level check on the LFG tool. However, it's also preventing me from heroics.
Currently, a player needs an average gear level of 329 to run heroics. Sadly, mine's 322. Additionally, I found some base numbers for stats on Shifting Perspectives by Allison Robert (
It looks like I need 741 hit (raiding will require a hit rating much higher), 29K armor, a hit pool of 106K, and 27% dodge. I thought this might be an issue until I reforged some gear. Unbuffed and in bear form, I have 109K+ in health and 26.72% dodge. I forgot to look up my armor number before I logged, but I'm sure I'm ok.
So now I'm all good to go for some regular instances tonight as far as gear and spec. I just hope I don't fail on my new rotation. At least the guild is more forgiving than PuGs.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62333 - Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz), they also have a good ring for feral tanking (http://www.wowhead.com/item=62348 - Terrath's Signet of Balance ). Granted the ring isn't real attractive, but hell, the stamina, the agility and the huge amount of hit will help in freeing up stats for dodge in other areas.
I still have quests left in The Twilight Highlands to finish out and Mount Hyjal has been untouched by Bacon Paws. So there's that little action item on my ToDo list. However, those areas (especially the Twight Highlands) have been bumped down a notch so I can start my next grind.
Another grind? Yep you heard that right. For the head and shoulder enchants in the game, the best ones are from the Earthen Ring and Therazane, respectively. Both have tabards and daily quests. So which one should I do first? It really came down to a coin toss for me and as fate would have it, looks like I'm going back to Deepholm for the Therazane rep. Oh well, at least I'll be done with it in a couple of weeks (I hope). I'm pretty sure that I can reach exalted with these guys considering I'll be wearing their tabard in heroics and the added bonus of them having 5 daily quests. Aside from them having the shoulder enchant (
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62374 - Sly Fox Jerkin). Honored shouldn't be too hard to attain since I haven't yet quested over there. This is something I definitely want to start on in addition to the daily quests for Therazane.
Now getting honored with the Guardians of Hyjal has a spiffy chest piece (
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/11/30/shifting-perspectives-patch-4-0-3a-and-the-road-to-85/).
Since I've ventured over to the realm of gear by talking about the chest piece and rings, I might as touch a bit on the gear grind. Yes there's a gear requirement for entering heroics through the Looking for Group tool. Back in Wrath it wasn't uncommon to find yourself in a pug with a tank lacking defense or stamina, or a DPS pulling 700 DPS (if you're lucky). I know these scenarios quite well since my former life was a healer in Wrath and The Burning Crusade. There were a number of daily pug heroics that I had carried a tank through or suffered an agonizing long DPS fight with poor DPS. So I welcome the new gear level check on the LFG tool. However, it's also preventing me from heroics.
Currently, a player needs an average gear level of 329 to run heroics. Sadly, mine's 322. Additionally, I found some base numbers for stats on Shifting Perspectives by Allison Robert (
It looks like I need 741 hit (raiding will require a hit rating much higher), 29K armor, a hit pool of 106K, and 27% dodge. I thought this might be an issue until I reforged some gear. Unbuffed and in bear form, I have 109K+ in health and 26.72% dodge. I forgot to look up my armor number before I logged, but I'm sure I'm ok.
So now I'm all good to go for some regular instances tonight as far as gear and spec. I just hope I don't fail on my new rotation. At least the guild is more forgiving than PuGs.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62333 - Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz), they also have a good ring for feral tanking (http://www.wowhead.com/item=62348 - Terrath's Signet of Balance ). Granted the ring isn't real attractive, but hell, the stamina, the agility and the huge amount of hit will help in freeing up stats for dodge in other areas.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Big Switch
Tuesday I was doing my normal routine of following up on some blogs and sites about feral tanking/DPS. See I was having some DPS problems with mobs in Deepholm and knew I needed to make some changes. Hence the research and I quickly came to the realization that it was time for me to remove the purple tinged glasses and start wearing this new quest DPS gear I was getting. But that was only the first half of the equation, I was going to have to respec and attain a more "pure" DPS build. Yes, it was time to ditch all I had done with being a resto druid.
It was a tough call, but as I have said before our guild downed the Lich King, I want to tank. I want the change of scenery. My battle cry was becoming more, "Give me more face time with the boss." and not "It's cool, I got healz covered." So last night it was time to pay up or find another class to play.
I made my way to the bank and starting cleaning house. Yeah I shed a few tears deleting my PVP healing gear (I wasn't going to last long anyway in Cataclysm Battlegrounds wearing it anyway). The real pain set in with I had to buy some Dust of Disapperance at 90 gold a pop to change out my resto gylphs for kitty power and I needed 6 of them. Geesh that hurt. I think I'm going to have to make a scribe to help offset that cost. Eventually, I got everythig squared away and I started out for Deepholm.
WAIT? DEEPHOLM? But Bacon, I thought you hated that place.
Yeah, I do. But I'm on a mission to finish that place out. I want to be sure that I can handle mobs pretty well before I head to Uldum. And the best place for me to know if I can carry the load is to go back to Deepholm.
Now the later Therazane quests get to be a little cooler. Especially one in which you have to play hop scotch with a big dragon. While I'm just halfway through level 83, I'm confident that I can head out to Uldum and carry weight in battle.
On a side note, I found a good gearing list from Elitist Jerks for Pre Heroic and Pre Raid gear. I just need to start tanking and get my mechanics down.
It was a tough call, but as I have said before our guild downed the Lich King, I want to tank. I want the change of scenery. My battle cry was becoming more, "Give me more face time with the boss." and not "It's cool, I got healz covered." So last night it was time to pay up or find another class to play.
I made my way to the bank and starting cleaning house. Yeah I shed a few tears deleting my PVP healing gear (I wasn't going to last long anyway in Cataclysm Battlegrounds wearing it anyway). The real pain set in with I had to buy some Dust of Disapperance at 90 gold a pop to change out my resto gylphs for kitty power and I needed 6 of them. Geesh that hurt. I think I'm going to have to make a scribe to help offset that cost. Eventually, I got everythig squared away and I started out for Deepholm.
WAIT? DEEPHOLM? But Bacon, I thought you hated that place.
Yeah, I do. But I'm on a mission to finish that place out. I want to be sure that I can handle mobs pretty well before I head to Uldum. And the best place for me to know if I can carry the load is to go back to Deepholm.
Now the later Therazane quests get to be a little cooler. Especially one in which you have to play hop scotch with a big dragon. While I'm just halfway through level 83, I'm confident that I can head out to Uldum and carry weight in battle.
On a side note, I found a good gearing list from Elitist Jerks for Pre Heroic and Pre Raid gear. I just need to start tanking and get my mechanics down.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Out and In
I know I haven't posted in a bit, but work has been insane. I would type up a post, get about half through it before something or someone needing railroad repair information or reassignment contract information from me side tracked me. Dammit! Can't they see I'm trying to blog here at work???
So let me catch you up on Bacon's Take of Cataclysm.
Last Tuesday Cataclysm was released, but you already knew that. I had to work that day (I'm not burning a valuable vacation day on a Tuesday no matter what the excuse is - well ok maybe something medical, but that's it). So I got home that night, logged in and found a queue of 2400+ staring back at me. To let you know how long that is, I was able to eat, bottle a batch of beer, brew another batch and get it into the fermenting bucket by the time my position was at 150. And that still means I had another 20 minutes to wait. :)
That first night consisted of 2 nice runs in Blackrock Caverns and one in Thron of Tides. I healed all three of them and I did find it challenging. I had read blogs and reviews saying that I should be ok and I was, but it wasn't a cake walk. I'm thinking it had more to do with the fact my gear is a mixture of 251/264 items with a couple of 277 pieces. The blog/review writers are running with mostly 277 gear from their 25 man ICC runs. But that's not the main jist of it, what really curdled my milk was the first run of Blackrock Caverns.
I queued up in the Dungeon Finder with our GM (who is our Main Tank) and our leet killing machine Mage. We picked up a level 81 Death Knight and a level 83 Ret Pally. Now, me and my guildmates had never been in this place and we took our normal, "Kick ass and take names later" approach like we always do. Sometimes that backfires and sometimes it only goes so far. For this run it went only as far as the first boss where I got a little too close and pounded by the boss. We wiped and as we're running back (this always happens as someone is running back from a wipe), the Ret Pally asks if we have done this fight before. Uh let me see, the expansion has been out maybe 16 hours and I've been on for maybe 30 minutes of it. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a first time for me and others. So I say so and the pally goes off with his IPhone text Chat, "Dood, say so. No need 2 wipe cuz u dont know fight". "Ur gerd and I wuz healing 2 help u." Hmmm... ok. The expansion isn't yet a day old and we already have experts. Thanks. And if he was healing, it was because I was dead. It didn't matter after this, because the pally left when we decided that we would take no shortcuts and kill ALL the trash there was. I mean hell, we're trying to level at the same time. Oh well, there's one in every bunch, right?
I finished the night doing a couple of quests in Vashj'ir. I really like the whole underwater environment and the storylines are well done.
My next night was Thursday since I have bowling on Wednesdays. I did some more questing in Vashj'ir and managed to push halfway past 81, but nothing else worth while mentioning here. I did noticed that the queues were still bad on KT as are the quest rewards. I'm thinking/hoping the quest rewards will get better in the next zone.
Friday and Saturday I had planned to spend some good time on questing and leveling. I saw that our GM and leading mage had hit 85 in between the last time I had been on and tonight. From some blogs I read, it's possible to hit level 85 in 16-20 hours or a few days. Unfortunately that's not me. I quest like an old woman drives, slow and methodically (or clueless). The whole quest line in Vashj'ir is somewhat remarkable especially when I started getting into the storyline with the Naga. I really don't want to go into any spoilers here, but I enjoyed the background. I never knew why these guys wanted to kick my ass, but now I know.
Saturday was a bad day for gaming and I was unable to get anything going with my she bacon bear till Sunday afternoon. But once I was on, I was locked on. I leveled to 82 and headed out to Deepholm. I'll come back to Vashj'ir and finish the zone, but as for now I want more feral lootz. And once I got to Deepholm, I realized that I need the lootz. Damn mobs just won't die and it feels like I'm tickling these guys to death. My 5200 gearscore wasn't going to cut it with some of these guys. I think I'm going to have to stop leveling in my tank spec and drop the resto spec for know. At least till I get to level 85.
Now Deepholm is just one horrible and ugly place. It reminds me of Netherstorm with troggs and exploding rock columns. While the quests rewards are better for me and what I'm going to need in Uldum, I can't wait to finish out this place. I can't believe Blizzard thought this place looked good.
So let me catch you up on Bacon's Take of Cataclysm.
Last Tuesday Cataclysm was released, but you already knew that. I had to work that day (I'm not burning a valuable vacation day on a Tuesday no matter what the excuse is - well ok maybe something medical, but that's it). So I got home that night, logged in and found a queue of 2400+ staring back at me. To let you know how long that is, I was able to eat, bottle a batch of beer, brew another batch and get it into the fermenting bucket by the time my position was at 150. And that still means I had another 20 minutes to wait. :)
That first night consisted of 2 nice runs in Blackrock Caverns and one in Thron of Tides. I healed all three of them and I did find it challenging. I had read blogs and reviews saying that I should be ok and I was, but it wasn't a cake walk. I'm thinking it had more to do with the fact my gear is a mixture of 251/264 items with a couple of 277 pieces. The blog/review writers are running with mostly 277 gear from their 25 man ICC runs. But that's not the main jist of it, what really curdled my milk was the first run of Blackrock Caverns.
I queued up in the Dungeon Finder with our GM (who is our Main Tank) and our leet killing machine Mage. We picked up a level 81 Death Knight and a level 83 Ret Pally. Now, me and my guildmates had never been in this place and we took our normal, "Kick ass and take names later" approach like we always do. Sometimes that backfires and sometimes it only goes so far. For this run it went only as far as the first boss where I got a little too close and pounded by the boss. We wiped and as we're running back (this always happens as someone is running back from a wipe), the Ret Pally asks if we have done this fight before. Uh let me see, the expansion has been out maybe 16 hours and I've been on for maybe 30 minutes of it. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a first time for me and others. So I say so and the pally goes off with his IPhone text Chat, "Dood, say so. No need 2 wipe cuz u dont know fight". "Ur gerd and I wuz healing 2 help u." Hmmm... ok. The expansion isn't yet a day old and we already have experts. Thanks. And if he was healing, it was because I was dead. It didn't matter after this, because the pally left when we decided that we would take no shortcuts and kill ALL the trash there was. I mean hell, we're trying to level at the same time. Oh well, there's one in every bunch, right?
I finished the night doing a couple of quests in Vashj'ir. I really like the whole underwater environment and the storylines are well done.
My next night was Thursday since I have bowling on Wednesdays. I did some more questing in Vashj'ir and managed to push halfway past 81, but nothing else worth while mentioning here. I did noticed that the queues were still bad on KT as are the quest rewards. I'm thinking/hoping the quest rewards will get better in the next zone.
Friday and Saturday I had planned to spend some good time on questing and leveling. I saw that our GM and leading mage had hit 85 in between the last time I had been on and tonight. From some blogs I read, it's possible to hit level 85 in 16-20 hours or a few days. Unfortunately that's not me. I quest like an old woman drives, slow and methodically (or clueless). The whole quest line in Vashj'ir is somewhat remarkable especially when I started getting into the storyline with the Naga. I really don't want to go into any spoilers here, but I enjoyed the background. I never knew why these guys wanted to kick my ass, but now I know.
Saturday was a bad day for gaming and I was unable to get anything going with my she bacon bear till Sunday afternoon. But once I was on, I was locked on. I leveled to 82 and headed out to Deepholm. I'll come back to Vashj'ir and finish the zone, but as for now I want more feral lootz. And once I got to Deepholm, I realized that I need the lootz. Damn mobs just won't die and it feels like I'm tickling these guys to death. My 5200 gearscore wasn't going to cut it with some of these guys. I think I'm going to have to stop leveling in my tank spec and drop the resto spec for know. At least till I get to level 85.
Now Deepholm is just one horrible and ugly place. It reminds me of Netherstorm with troggs and exploding rock columns. While the quests rewards are better for me and what I'm going to need in Uldum, I can't wait to finish out this place. I can't believe Blizzard thought this place looked good.
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