Feature or fault?

Yesterday was the time for few hours of low level static grouping: only our rogue couldn't join us this time. The four of us took the WSG first because it was the daily BG. As we are using the ingame voice chat due to a)convenience and b) being lazy, I was a bit surprised that the group chat settings worked inside the battle party and it seems that they override the BG party settings. Which means that our petty troupe chatted the battles away, either disturbing others or not: no one commented on our chatting in any form or function.

The other thing was our run in Ragefire Chasm (we had to take set dungeon, as the LFD complained about one of us "not meeting the dungeon requirements" in random): the voice chat doesn't work there at all it seems. At least it doesn't work when we have a substitute to fill the group up. Which in fact complies with the information Blizzard is giving about the LFD: the communication and trade between different realms is restricted.

However, the thing which was disturbing was something I dismissed the last time. As we came out of the dungeon, we couldn't get out of the LFD until we left the group completely. So we had to assemble our party anew after the dungeon. This doesn't make any sense: we join the system in a party, and after doing the dungeon we have to disassemble and form the party again to go to another dungeon.

This is the feature I hope Blizz could tweak out. It should be possible to run several dungeons with the same party, I my honest opinion, so that you could group with even the same random dungeon group for several dungeons in a row. Someone else has written about the same, too, but I forget who it was.

So the question is, is this must to break even pre-formed group before going for a new random dungeon a feature or a fault in the system?

A letter to home

Dear Mom and Paps


It's incredible how time flies in this business of being a hero: it feels like I just left home at Dun Morogh, but it has taken me several weeks already. Sorry that I haven't taken time to write, but being a hero is very, very busy thing!


First of all, I have to take care of my henchmen, who want to travel with me. I just cannot neglect their needs and requirements, so we're pretty constantly having breaks either to skin the animals our hunter kills (partly for food, too), collect herbs for our herbalist and such. What I wonder the most is the uncanny need of the warro warol the funny guy with this demon type: he has to keep drinking, else he becomes sober. Or that's what I've come to expect, as he's not very sensible when he hasn't been drinking in a while. Also my healer does the same, but she's just so prissy that she does it more discreetly.


We ventured quite fast to Kharanos, the nearest dwarven settlement on our way to Ironforge. I have met - and killed like a good hero - several troggs and even some trolls, and even visited the entrance to our beloved home, Gnomeregan! That area is infested with the sickly creatures you described as Leper Gnomes, but I have this feeling in my tummy that they are not the worst we'll see when I enter the town of our forefathers. Already I have gathered some information that there may be something very wrong in Gnomeregan as whole.


I have met some wonderful people already, some from the pages of the adventure collections I read from the Dun Morogh library. Can you believe, I have discussed with King Varian Wrynn and Ms. Jaina Proudmoore! King Wrynn was quite a grumpy fellow for a human even, but he stated that he had not heard about Uncle Bickers who left with Prince Menthil's army to high norths. And Ms. Proudmoore: She promised to have a discussion with me later on, and boy am I waiting for that.


But the life of a hero isn't all walk on roses. Just yesterday me and my party went and helped the Alliance forces in the Warsong Gulch, where the Horde tries to hinder the local forestry operations. We fought hard and evenly for the demo dima owning the area, only to be called back right after the last battle had been fought. It seems that I'm more capable of taking hits from the enemy without hurting myself than the rest of my group, but I'm also the one who sees the enemy go down right into the face!


The other day we also found out that there is a way to get teleported to another part of the world and fight the demons and beasts described in the fairy tales and old crones' stories! We went and found ourselves in a cavern which was obviously beneath a strange city: I can only guess that the librarian (the funny gnome with his blue demon) was right when he stated that we were underneath the Horde capital, Orgirir O r g r i m m a r. (I had to ask him to tell me how to spell it, it's hard enough to porn pron say it right). 


But the place was partly the dream of a dwarf due to the lava and warmth, but it was full of troggs, some lava-stone men and evil orcs. And one huge and scary Demon, which I killed after a looong fight. It's strange how such a huge thing can have such small stuff that I, your little boy, can easily wear. You see, I found a nice pair of wrist bracers from it, which make me feel myself very, very agile.


But there are good days in being a hero. We saved earlier the town of Thelsamar from Horde invasion with my henchmen and an odd help from a strange warrior coming from afar. Well, there was only one Horde, but he was killing our troops like flies, and we also died several times. But being a hero benefits from your motto, paps: never give up even if it takes your life. So the spirit healer was very much occupied during that fight, until this strange cold warrior came with it's undead friend and banished the Horde longear. I wonder if she came from where Bickers went? She said though, that she hadn't seen Bickers anywhere, so I'll have to keep looking for him.


Anyhow, I'm now resting in Ironforge, which is just as big -or even a bit bigger- than I remember from our Winter Veil trips of old. As Winter Veil is here, I wish you have a warm and secure one there by the hearth.


Take care and I'll write you again, hopefully sooner than later.


Your third son

Futis

PS. Thank you for the woolly socks, they fit nicely into my boots. However, I'm not sure how long we'll be in Ironforge after this, as it seems we have to go to the Human areas soon. So don't bother to send me anything: instead, I'll send you a part of the treasures I find while being a Hero. It is so fun!

To aspiring tanks

Two links to help all you tanks not sure about yourself as leaders or your skills in tanking heroics. Worth reading and acting upon:

Tank Hard post On Being A Tank.

Spinks in Welcome to Spinksville on Overcoming the Fear of Tanking.

In short: Get a grip of yourself, grab your sword and shield and just tank it.

There isn't really a shortcut to great tanking. Or leading a group.

Leading or not

It seems that 3.3 patch has incited the blogosphere to a new rage again, with most of the posts being very enthusiastic about two things in the patch: LFD and Icecrown.

Naturally, as those were the main things the patch introduced.

I'm going to delve on the LFD tool a bit more. Tarsus of Tanking for Dummies wrote about the tanking in LFD and listed things why majority of the people do not want to tank in LFD tool. He based this on the fact that tanks get grouped in seconds, while even healers have to wait for a while, at least. The list was as follows:

1. Playing a tank is more expensive in terms of gold than other roles.
2. The learning curve on tanking is steeper.
3. There are less “slots” open for tanks doing the end-game.
4. Encounter Design makes you feel “fragile”.
5. No one wants to failknight tank or look at the big bear butt. 

And I have to agree on almost all of them. On the last one I'm not as sure, but then again, being a tank mainly I don't have the luxury to evaluate other tanking classes except our own guildies and by far the big butted gear IS the tank I will refer to in my performance. Granted, our experience both in game and in tanking differs quite a lot... 

But then again RJK from The Savage Coast wrote a nice recap on his experience as a tank in LFG and as it happens, his 3rd point strikes a chord in me: I am a careful tank, too. Or at least I try to make sure things work and everyone is prepared. Of course, there are deviations from the rule, like the wipe I caused in PoS by charging without checking the healer's mana... but most of the time I am way too careful, to the point of frustration especially in LFD PUGs. However, I'd rather be safe than sorry and I have to refer to one phrase that has stuck into my mind from a blog post sometime ago. I don't remember what blog it was, but it had this rule on fast:

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Slow is fast.

So if I prepare and move one step at a time, I will end my job faster than hurrying and fumbling from the beginning. And boy is this hard to understand in some PUG's.

Due to my (in)experience as a tank -overall- I don't trust my judgement in heroics I've run once or twice with vastly over geared guildies. This tends to lead into problems in PUGs in which the leadership is bestowed on my shoulders: I don't want to lead if I'm not confident on what I'm doing. This leads to the post Larísa from The Pink Pigtail Inn wrote about taking leadership in a PUG. Especially this I find both familiar and very comforting (to know I'm not the only one thinking like this):

I rarely try to take the leadership when I’m doing group activities in WoW. It isn’t because I’m afraid of leading other people; I think it’s rather because of my lack of deep knowledge in other classes and game mechanics. I’ve always thought I would make a poor instructor to tanks and healers what to do, whom to heal or which mob to charge, taunt, whatever, so I’ve happily left those decisions to others, more experienced players.

Instead of asking the question Larísa is asking about how to take leadership, I would like to ask how to politely decline from leading? I've stated directly in the PUG's that I'm in this dungeon for the first, second or even third time just to make the rest of the team to understand that I really don't know the instance so well. But how about the new ones? Is it reasonable to have a group in which healer and/or dps have ran through the dungeon and the tank hasn't, and the leadership is put on the inexperienced tank?

And why does it always have to be the tank leading? Wasn't the marking capability given to all in the party?

But for me the best part of the LFD system has been the fact that I get to work with different kinds of groups: some work, some not. The wiping is a monster to me, which I try to avoid the best I can, so I'm learning new things from my class and my play style. I learn from one challenging run more than several too easy ones.

The badges are an additional bonus as long as I can do my job. Not as a leader, but as a warrior.

Hits and blunders (YAWP)

LFD is a wonderfull tool, which connects total strangers across the battleground to fight either select or -more often- completely random Wrath of the Lich King dungeon. It works like a clockwork, is simple, fast and very entertaining, most of the time.

And with that prelude I'm off to my weekend.

All well and fine in the world of Azeroth. I met both exceptionally working groups as well as one or two obnoxiously intolerable dps divas, mainly from the DK persuasion: I wonder if DK's have somehow replaced the most obnoxious group of all times -that being the Huntards- as the most self-centered players in the game? Then again, lets not let the few rotten apples to spoil the whole basket: there were also excellent DK's with whom I ran the Random Dungeons. Too bad they were guildies, but what can you expect? :P

The total anonymity of the LFD tool is yet to surface, for people are very polite and nice to each other. Only in few of the random groups I found people eager to chat, the most vocal was this one mage who's main phrase was "gogogogogo" after any and all encounters. But then again, that run through Drak'Tharon was very smooth and fast.

There are few annoying things about the LFD tool, too. The first, which started to pick me the first time I ran it, is the fact that a) you can be 'denied' from a group before it launches and b) of someone declines the group invite for a reason or another the whole group is returned to the queue. The first one I cannot explain because I haven't tried to be a leader yet, but the second is annoying example on how dumb the piece of program is. It makes a selection from the set population, but cannot make a reserve list from which to amend if any of the individuals rejects the invitation. Probably this can -and hopefully will- be tweaked in latter versions.

One nice thing, though, for the DPS classes over there. As I grouped with a guildie, a DK, we got a random group running within seconds. So in a way he was riding along with me being a tank and in constant need from the system. All in all, it pays to stick with a tank in this sense, too. As we found out, we saved each other's butts more than once, and the groups we ran from wipe more than once. Imagine that tank and DPS save the day after a triggerhappy paladin -the healer- decides to tank a miniboss and few adds... It was fun and furious and all the cooldowns were used, but we prevailed. And were the only ones alive when the dust settled.

The only thing that didn't go as well as I thought was the finale of the weekend, in which I decided to go with guildies into the IC hc 5mans chain. Forge of Souls was a blast and went so fast I didn't even know what happened. Really, I had to ask before we entered the portal to Pit of Saron what just happened. I was just keeping the mobs and bosses on me and trying to keep them hitting me, mostly without a problem. Old rules of not standing in anything and avoiding the blasts applied, FoS was surprisingly easy. For the group, that is.

Pit of Saron was something else, though. At least for me, as I have this problem with moving and tanking at the same time. Add to that multiple mobs and I'm having really hard time.

Forgemaster Garfrost was already somewhat hard on us, as the healer got eaten alive by the cold stacking on him on the first try. This was the first wipe in the whole run, but not the last... sadly.

Ick was the second, and I'm not sure as of yet, why. Maybe it was me, not moving the boss enough to help the dps to be in a spot without the toxic sludge, or something, because on the second run it went smoothly. The ramp up to the passageway proved to be problematic. My computer had frozen earlier due to some UI issue, but now I got DC'd. Luckily before a pull, but never the less. Something's wrong with my 'puter, as this wasn't the first nor the last case of freezes and odd behaviour. But up we went to the Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Which was the wipefest. First pull: I didn't know what hit me, but it hit well over 17k overkill. Second pull: it hit even faster and harder. Third pull: my screen froze just as Tyrannus jumped off of his mount. I came back to witness a wipe.

So. It left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Things to be happy about. New shiny shoulders for Laiskajaakko: it cost 45 Triumphs, but was worth it. Pupunen left Outlands and is now capable of Cold Weather Flight in Northrend: she'll next start running the random dungeons, too.

To do: find a good DPS gear set for Laiskajaakko's Arms build. He's lacking a decent dps set for runs in which the tank is better, which are usually guild runs. But it would be nice to see the instances from the dps point of view and to see how other tanks do the job, especially in the instances I have trouble with mobs.

All in all, a good solid weekend of fun.

How about yours?