Raiding Check

Back in 1981, I started Hashing with the San Jose Hash House Harriers (Costa Rica) when I was living down there. This is an organization that gets together on regular, scheduled events with members all present to have fun and whom are geared differently - both in actual worn gear and in physical conditioning. They use a 'Check' as a mechanism to keep the widely-disparate group together to a degree.

A 'Check' in Hashing is a mechanism that keeps the front runners from getting too far ahead of the main body and generally serves to keep all the Hashers together as they progress through the course. It's a practice learned from decades of experience.

Blizzard would be well advised to learn from the experiences of other organizations and a 'check' is a good example. In raiding terms, it would be a raid that slowed down the front runners so that the main body of raiders could stay somewhat within reach and range gear-wise.

Currently, front runners are having world-firsts within 2-3 weeks of patch/content releases. The rest of the community is far, far behind that. This creates a huge gear gap under the present gear drops. Raiders that have the time to brute force pummel new content, quickly gear up and can now no longer raid with those that do not have the time available. By the time the main body catches up, the brute force types with beaucoup time have already moved another gear tier or iLevel ahead.

It fosters several things - one of which is a smaller and smaller pool of raiders to work with. It also fosters boredom. Same people, same instance, nothing new, no real challenges. Enter Achievements. This alleviates the 'no real challenge' syndrome. However, it still persists that there are only so many people that you can work with to do those achievements and limits your exposure to other raiders.

A viable 'check' for Blizzard would be to roll out an instance that was seriously tough to chug through *and* that dropped a lot of gear at each boss *and* that the gear as you progressed was not that much greater from the gear from the first few bosses. This would mean that raids could progressively gear off 2-3 bosses early in the instance and still be able to raid with raiders working on bosses 6-8, as an example.

In short, it would help keep the overall community 'within reach' as a 'reserve' for any raid and would foster being able to raid with far more people.

Right now, instead, I hear a lot of skilled raiders quitting the game altogether because they have nowhere to go. If for any reason, they are 'done' with their raid group or guild, they are too far geared to recede back into 'the masses' whom will take too long to clear back to where these individuals are and there are simply not enough people in the same 'gear range' in 'enough' guilds for them to go to. So they quit.

In Ulduar, there are those that are clearing, and those that are starting. And the gear gap is huge.

Blizzard has definitely improved since Molten Core gaps in the pack, however they should look to roll out a fat, thick, slow to chew through, highly rewarding yet still iLevel close raid instance.

It would mean, for instance, that we would no longer have a linear, serial progression when they released the subsequent raid instance. Raid groups that had cleared the fat chew would move on to 'next raid instance' and raid groups that were still chewing through the fat could elect to continue or would be 'close enough' geared that they could also move on to that 'next raid instance'.

All in all fostering keeping people meeting new people and thereby keeping the game 'fresh' and interesting.

Just another of my two cents worth.

Progression at your own pace

Deep within the patch notes for 3.2 is one of those common sense things that you look at and say, "ah yes! wonder why we didn't do that earlier!" Now, guilds will have the opportunity to work through a raid instance at a pace that matches their availability.

Fantastic improvement for all those guilds that have raiders with kids, heavy work schedules, lives beyond raiding, etc.

"gj blizz!"

Benefits of Not-alt'ing

So it probably comes as no surprise to those that do not have many alts (or none at all) and it is likely quite obvious to those highly attuned to the faction of Common Sense, but if you spend some time focusing on one toon, a lot happens. And by that, I mean a lot. Especially, if it is the type of class that can have multiple raid roles and hence gear wardrobes.

It's certainly tempting to have several classes and toons: one to tank with, one to heal with, and one to dps with - and don't forget that bank toon. With dual spec, a fair amount of that went away.

However, consider this, if it takes on the order of 20+ days to get to 80, and you level a ranged dps, a tank and a healer to 80, if you had just leveled one druid with dual spec boomkin/tank, you'd be fully geared all roles (all four) and most likely fully cleared all content on normal, heroic and even hard mode.

It's not for everyone - most people that know me know it is not for me long time either -- I like my alts, especially since they are spread across multiple servers and factions. However, it is easy to see how focused players develop quite a gear gap with altoholics.

You Spank It, You Tank It! You Pull It, You Bull It!

Sometimes, the rest of the group just does not get it. You look at your poor healer and you can imagine the completely unholy and unrested words spewing forth as they mangle their keyboard attempting to keep everyone upright. Yes, that's right, you've got 'one of those groups' in that there instance with ya.

You usually get a whisper from the healer apologizing that they let you go too low on that last one but that they had to split their attention and heals across too many others. That's when you politely try to 'help' the others recognize that if there is one tank, there is only one (usually) that needs to be healed. When they screw that up, or chime in about how they have enough health, too - that's usually when I let it slide out:

"You spank it, you tank it!" And if I already pulled and you insist on pulling it away from me - you best have a good Plan B!

Sometimes, they learn - sometimes the healer has to let them eat a repair bill - and sometimes, they just never get it. Just make sure your healer knows you have their back and that you are doing what you can to curb the behavior the over-confident ones are displaying -- that way you have a pocket healer forevah!

btw - I think it is especially suitable if you are a bear tank to switch into cat form when a DK or mage or lock decide to pull before the healer has had a chance to even get up to 25% mana -- I just wish there was a /confused emote for kitty form for when the dk/lock/mage goes ballistic and foams at the mouth about you letting them tank it!

(full disclosure: there was also a hunter, and he insisted on seriously pwning face on a mob that only had FFF on it for aggro and was half way to me - he died. it was b-movie level horror gore. i think his pet parts may still be 'within him' during the putting him back together after that incident. while he was not amused at all - the healer offered me 10g to do it again. O.o )

Recommending Dual Spec: Boomkin/Feral Tank

Several close druid friends have asked me almost the same questions over the last 4 weeks. I'll answer here as I think the response applies to both leveling toons and end cap toons. First of all, let me get one thing out of the way: go dual spec! It really is not about whether feral or boomkin is better for leveling. It is about being the master of all roles and all your abilities appropriate to your roles. Dual spec is a simple mechanism that allows you to quickly switch between roles as needed (when out of combat).

There is plenty of debate already published over whether feral or boomkin are the quicker leveling spec. People with far more time on their hands than I have on mine have already done totally geeked out time measures on this subject. Frankly, I've now had a chance to seriously test both and will continue the boomkin leveling test all the way to 80. So far, neither one has afforded any noticeable or measureable gain over the other. I did group with a boomkin and a feral at one point for a full day with each trying to demonstrate how the other had more down time. They were both wrong. I was able to show them how I had zero - *zero* - downtime for 2 hours straight of leveling. (yeah - it was very fun!) Each of them would have to sit and either drink or eat or bandage while I would move on to the next mob non-stop.

Fundamentally, I think the problem lay in that each was trying hard to stay within their domain to prove their point to each other. Whereas I would do what druids are truly awesome at: transition from role to role as needed. I would leave just enough mana in the pool to switch out of boomkin into cat form. Sure, dps dropped and my skills didn't get any cost reductions, but I didn't stop leveling for a break. I'd also cast innervate often. And I'd cast a lot of rejuv while moving between mobs as boomkin and a regrowth after each fight as cat. No bandages, no eating, no drinking - using boomkin talent tree - grinding quests in both boomkin and cat form giving preference to boomkin as primary damage dealer.

So why dual spec?

Enter left stage the 'LFG Channel'.

"LFM Ranged dps" - check! Boomkin with boomkin talents and caster gear.
"LFM Healer" - check! Caster form with boomkin talents and caster gear (works fine unless you are healing for a raid in which case go respec that spec to resto).
"LFM Tank" - check! Feral tank talents with feral stam, agi armor gear.
"LFM dps" - check! I suggest Boomkin over cat, but if they want the feral buff you can put out 'mid pack' dps lazily.

So by speccing boomkin and feral tank, you can play any role anyone seeks in LFG as long as it is not a serious progression raid and even then, you can handle 3 our of 4 of the key roles without a respec in a 25 man raid.

Yes, you can scream that you must have the specific tier gear and the glyphs and the... yes, but until you are really pushing hard progression point content for you and your raid group, you can get by very well as is. Once you get to the point where you are collecting tier gear, there your gear wardrobe needs to be amplified and you have to collect better suited sets in order to pull off multi role well. However, until then, you can do very nicely just boomkin / feral tank dual-spec.

Now all you have to do is go get used to playing all the roles and get into the habit of knowing when to fire off innervate (it should always be on cool down - someone in your group wants that mana!).

Hope that helps.

Touching base and /farewell Karthis

Touching base to say still here! ... and to wish farewell to Karthis (fuzzy tank blogger) who is hanging up his claws for now - I added the 'for now'. Within the blogging community, there is a wide-spread trend of people moving on. In part, likely because they are certainly getting the 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt [achievement]' feeling. From vanilla to TBC, there was such a huge change and so much content to experience from a totally different perspective that it kept things fresh and challenging. At the end of the day, no, not everyone could see the content and that made it all the more valuable. You can argue one side or the other, but at the end of the day, economics cannot be ignored. And if you allow for everyone to see all the content (supply is limitless) then demand approaches zero... most quickly for those that see it first. Natural order.
Personally, I recommend switching factions. Start over. On a server with no help. See how good a player you really are.
Saw the most interesting thing on my rogue: I could be at the top of the 'damage done' chart but only second on the 'dps' chart, or I could be at the top of the dps meter while not at the top of the 'damage done' chart. Think about that for a second. If everyone was in the same fight for the same duration - how the heck would I be top damage done (within the same time frame as everyone else) and not be the top damage per second?! If you do a 1000 damage in 10 seconds - does it matter if it is in two bursts or seven? you were doing 100 dps. Weird math. Anyways...
Take care Karthis - see you around soon!

Make Some Servers True Player vs. Player - Not Faction vs. Faction

Dear Blizzard,
It is time. Begin planning some of those nice shiny new realms to be true player versus player (pvp) - not faction versus faction (fvf) and misnamed 'pvp'. Identify some realms that exist now and switch them to pvp (from fvf) allowing free transfers off the server for those customers that do not want to partake.
One of the benefits of playing on a so-called pvp server (fvf) is that you have a sense of - no, a heightened sense of risk. You tend to pan the camera around more often, more especially when doing things like fishing or drinking/eating. You have a heightened awareness that bad things can happen if you do not pay attention out in the wild wilderness.
However, there is a false sense of security when out in the wilds you see that friendly green name tag moving through the brush towards you. You know they cannot hurt you.
Discard that false sense of pve within a faction.
Increase the satisfaction and reward of playing on a fvf server by stepping it up to a true pvp server. Those name tags are neutral until you befriend them (add them to your friends list).
And they may not be coming towards you as friendly as you might have wanted. When you see them in the distance, yes that's right, be wary. Gather your things and collect yourself. You may be about to engage in combat out in these wild wilds.
There _are_ bandits on the roads. Brigands across the bridges. Wildmen in the wilds.
And if you think you will ride up and steal my node after I cleared to it, be advised, the lawless wilds shall be visited upon by dealing out my own justice!
Blizz, do it. Give it a try. You might find that it attracts more gamers from other vendors that offer a true pvp environment.
Do it! You know you want to!