cancelled the account

20130710, mercredi

I have found no reason to continue, and have had a lot of fun elsewhere.

If WoW gets rid of

1. pandas (unlikely)
2. Pokemon (unlikely)
3. endless dailies (unlikely)
4. et cetera, see previous posts

I'll think about returning.  It was mostly great fun, 2007 jan to 2013 aug (when subscription runs out; I won't be playing in the meantime).

20130521, mardi

Working on Guild Wars 1 for a while.

20130508: character developments

20130508, mercredi

The rule of six: why WoW looks like it's being sent into the sunset as a product.


Here are some examples to get us started.

A. Mistweaver monk.  The six skills are

1. Renewing Mist.
2. Uplift.
3. Soothing Mist.
4. Gift of the Serpent.
5. Revival.
6. Surging Mist.

When I run an LFR, I often have the WoW add-on tinyDPS active during the entire proceedings to catch statistics about the effects of my healing efforts.  My top six most productive skills are usually the six above.  Sometimes the order (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth most heals delivered) changes, but it's almost always the six above.

Before the disaster called 5.2 came out, I used Enveloping Mist instead of Uplift.  Now mana costs are too high, and I switched to skills based more on chi.   Occasionally, Spinning Crane Kick weasels its way onto the list when there are many, many multi-mob trash enemies to defeat.  Still, 99% of all my heals are done with six spells.

B. Restoration Druid.  The six skills are

1. Wild Growth.
2. Swiftmend.
3. Rejuvenation.
4. Lifebloom.
5. Tranquility.
6. Wild Mushroom: Bloom.

The order may vary from LFR to LFR, but it's always these six. When I switch off to other skills to any extent, I have always seen a drop in HPS.

C. Affliction Warlock.  The six skills are

1. Corruption.
2. Agony.
3. Unstable Affliction.
4. Curse of the Elements.
5. Malefic Grasp.
6. Drain Soul.

As before, the order may change, but it's always these six.  When I deviate from these six, my DPS drops.

D.  Discipline Priest.  This is slightly more complicated.

1. Penance.
2. Cascade.
3. Smite.
4. Power Word: Solace.
5. Mind Sear.
6. Power Word: Pain.

When time is not tight, I join LFRs as DPS since I cast spells on enemies for the most part.  On a good day, I'll rank around #15 in DPS, but #7 to as high as #3 in healing even though I try to cast few if any direct healing spells.

Discipline Priests proc Atonement (often 66% of my healing total) and Divine Aegis (another 20% or so of my healing) when they cast the first 4 skills listed above.  That is, there is no skill called Atonement, but when Penance is cast, it damages the enemy, and heals the Priest's allies.  This healing is attributed to Atonement.

When I get my spell power considerably higher, I intend to keep to this strict model.  I've seen Discipline Priests come in #1 in healing with only Atonement and Divine Aegis...so they've cast zero healing spells the entire LFR.  That's my goal for Kronospriest...as well as to be in the top ten consistently in overall damage done.

In the mean time, I use

1. Power Word: Shield
2. Power Word: Barrier
3. Desperate Prayer
4. Hymn of Hope
5. Shadowfiend

as stop gap measures to keep my character alive and to restore mana.  However, the more I use these, the more my productivity drops.

E. Fire Mage.  This is very direct.

1. Fireball.
2. Living Bomb.
3. Inferno Blast.
4. Pyroblast.
5. Molten Armor.
6. Combustion.

One should keep Molten Armor on all the time, and cast Fireball repeatedly.  Pepper enemies with Living Bomb.  Wait for Inferno Blast to light up, then invoke it.  (One sees 'heating up' on the screen.)  This usually makes Pyroblast an instant invocation rather than a slow one.  Use Pyroblast as often as possible.  Hit Combustion now and then, and you've got some great DPS.  Blizzard messes with this rat's nest of spells now and then, but those are most of the basics.

Repeat.

There are many other Fire Mage skills, but using other ones means a drop in productivity; that is, drop in DPS.

=========================================================

In MoP, these small skill sets are made strongly attractive.  That is, once you've found them (either by yourself, or on the internet, or from your friends) it's hard to move away from them to anything else because your DPS or HPS will drop.  Since the pattern repeats itself across classes, this seems to be by design. So what's the goal behind the design?

Since one can accomplish almost everything by using just 6 spells, why not simplify the WoW action bars?  I usually have 48 spots in my deployed action bars.  Clearly I don't need this.  One could drop the GUI down to say 12 spots total...so that WoW could look like a more fully featured version of Guild Wars.  I would guess this will start being bandied about sometime this calendar year.

When your company starts driving the product into being an imitation of an inferior rival, it usually means that the product is slated for the dust bin.  WoW has had a good run, but the direction the product is taking is not one that I find encouraging.

Anyway, have a good think about your characters...

1. Blizzard has decided which spells are your best choices.
2. Blizzard reduced the glyph system from 9 to 3 (the minor glyphs are meaningless).
3. Blizzard reduced the talent system from one talent point per level (before Cataclysm) to one talent point per two levels (Cataclysm) to one talent choice per 15 levels (the disaster of MoP). Often 4 or 5 of the six talent choices are useless or detrimental to the character...why choose any?

I suppose if one is 8 or so years old, these are 'good' changes, just like placing a copy of Pokemon inside WoW is a 'good' addition.  It's all easy to learn and fun to do...just six buttons to push, and little of that pesky configuration to do.

20130506, lundi
posted 20130508

A. Character status, armour: I have 6 characters left in the Dungeon Crusaders guild.  All of them are level 90.  So what is left is armour, crafts, and gold.  Let's look at armour changes first.

1. 498 Chronosmwone, Mistweaver monk
2. 482 Chronosdruid, Restoration Druid
3. 481 Chronoslock, Affliction Warlock
4. 480 Chronoslycan, Frost Death Knight
5. 475 Chronospriest, Discipline Priest
6. 467 Chronosmonk, Mistweaver/Windwalker monk

I've resorted to PvP to increase the rankings of my armour for the Druid, the Warlock, and the DK.  This was relatively quick for getting to average iLevel ~476.  Above that, I use LFR drops and valor point purchases.  For the 498 Mistweaver, I've stayed with only PvE armour, as I've done with the priest and the MW/WW monk.

The Windwalker armour is all based on agility, but advancement comes a lot quicker with Mistweaver.  So I'm going with 2 different sets for Chronosmonk: a pure agility set for DPS, and a mixed set for doing LFRs as Mistweaver.

For one reason or another, Chronosmwone remains my lead (most advanced) character, and I am aiming to get the average iLevel above 500.

I dropped the Shadow spec on the priest in favour of Discipline, which is where the character was most of its career.  Discipline is particularly good in LFRs, where I operate as DPS, but score well with healing due to procs to Atonement and Divine Aegis.

B. Crafts.

Both Kronospriest and Chronosmonk are leatheworking/skinning.    As I saw in the Darkmoon Faire, the monk still needs to do some finishing in both.  Chronosmwone and Chronoslycan are both 600/600 in herbalism/inscription.  The Druid is 600/600 in tailoring/enchanting, while the Warlock is 600/600 in mining/engineering.  So I've covered only 6 areas in crafting.  In retrospect, I wish I had planned that better.

Most of the characters are at the place where they can purchase recipes for the 'higher order' products, such as 458 leather armour and the like.  I have a lot to do there.

C. Gold.

I could use more of this before the next expansion to make the transition easier.  So I need to do more crafting and selling in the auction house.

20130330: character updates.

20130330, samedi

A. Status updates, Uldum realm characters.

1. 90Chronosmwone, iLevel 492, mistweaver monk
2. 90Chronoslock, iLevel 481, affliction warlock
3. 90Kronospriest, iLevel 475, discipline priest
4. 90Chronosmonk, iLevel 462, windwalker monk
5. 90Chronoslycan, iLevel 447, frost death knight
6. 89Chronosdruid, iLevel 427, balance druid

B. Notes, Uldum characters.

1. Mistweaver--I have upped the average iLevel from running LFR6 (Last Stand of the Zandalari) and from purchases made available from the Shado-pan Assault reputation.  While 5.2 has increased mana problems overall, it has also increased the chi production rate.  Using this, I've kept the Mistweaver viable by changing spell sequencing, notably invoking Uplift frequently.  I'm hoping to get some more 502 gear in LFR7, but it has not happened yet.
2. Warlock--my misadventure into PvP helped get my armour level high enough to run all 7 LFRs, which is great.  I still have a lot to do on making this character stronger as DPS.
3. Priest--I changed my alt-spec from Shadow back to Discipline.  Now this character is almost OK as DPS in raids, but has a large side effect of healing with Atonement and Divine Aegis.  Once I get the spell power up significantly, the priest should become my lead character.
4. Windwalker--who cares?  Not I.
5. Frost DK--again, who cares?
6. Balance druid--finally achieved character level 89.  I revisited the character's alt-spec of Restoration, filled it out (talent choices, glyphs, action bars), and will start in as healer sometime after I hit level 90.

C. Antonidas realm.

1. I've got 11 characters there, one around level 10, the rest levels 32 to 86.
2. I should revitalize this group.  It has a full set of crafts, I think, which will ameliorate the lack of guild membership.
3. I learned a lot about WoW (particularly PvE) with Dungeon Crusaders in the Uldum realm, and should apply that to my older, nostalgic favorites.

D. Other realms.

1. I have ignored my orc, blood elf, and goblin characters for far too long.
2. It's interesting to run dungeons that I've run as Alliance in Horde mode, and observe the chatter.  A lot of it is just the same, and some not.  It's often quite a hoot.

20130320, mercredi, first day of spring

A. Shuffling.

1. I deleted some characters that I decided not to develop further in the guild's realm: 18Kronostpanda (panda Brewmaster monk), 30Kronosnetank (Night Elf Brewmaster), 39Xronospriest (human holy priest), and 51Kronoshunter, which I had dropped from the guild months ago.  I decided not to pursue tanking via the Brewmaster monk route, and had changed 90Kronospriest from Shadow to Holy, making the level 39 an unneeded duplicate.
2. I dropped my 85Chronosmage from the guild since I am no longer developing the character, and it was yet another LW/Skinner.  Eliminating a level 85 seems painful, but I'll eventually delete that one too. The guild already has an exceptionally good level 90 mage, and 90Kronospriest is 600/600 in LW/Skinning.
3. I've been moving the level 88 balance druid slowly toward level 89.  I have no interest in this character as far as dungeons or raids are concerned, but it does have 600/600 in Enchanting/Tailoring.
4. As a further slimming, my next target will be 90Chronosmonk.  This character is a Windwalker, which I do not find interesting after all, and another LW/Skinning duplicate.  I may collect armour for a Windwalker alt/spec for 90Chronosmwone, whose primary spec is Mistweaver.

B. Current armour levels:

1. 90Chronosmwone: average iLevel 488 Mistweaver
2. 90Chronoslock: average iLevel 481  Affliction Warlock, PvE; this might sometimes come up with the 475 Season 13 PvP armour.
3. 90Kronospriest: average iLevel 475 Holy Priest; I've changed the alt spec from Shadow to Discipline for LFR healer experiments.
4. 90Chronosmonk: average iLevel 462 Windwalker Monk
5. 90Chronoslycan: average iLevel 447 Frost Death Knight
6. 88Chronosdruid: average iLevel 423 Balance Druid

C. Plans.

1. Mistweaver---I'll likely keep this one, just so I have one character with the armour to play in each LFR that Blizzard offers in WoW.  Now that I've converted the character from panda to human, it is less repellent.
2. Affliction Warlock---shows some real promise in PvE, but none in PvP.  Also, this one has a 600 rating in Engineering.
3. Healer Priest---I would like to see whether this character can catch up (or surpass) the Mistweaver.  Has 600/600 in LW/Skinning, another plus.
4. Windwalker---I enjoyed this character very much until I hit the MoP content.  Now I don't see the point.  I could insert my Windwalker learning into an alt spec for the Mistweaver.  The crafting abilities of this character are duplicates, so there would be no loss from deleting it.
5. Frost Death Knight---this was my lead character until MoP.  I don't like DKs in MoP, and the thought of running my DK through the 9 MoP Heroic dungeons multiple times nauseates me.  The professions for this character are 600/600 Herbalism/Inscription, but the Mistweaver has this as well.  So, I might drop this one, since there would be no real losses involved.
6. Balance Druid---this is a crafting character pure and simple.  I will probably keep it for the crafting, but for no other reason.

D. Longer range, through later expansions.

1. I'll probably keep numbers 1, 2, 3, and 6 in Part C above.
2. Unless I regain my enjoyment of melee, I'll drop 4, and 5.

20130314, jeudi

A. At the urging of a pair of my guild mates in the Uldum realm, I tried PvP before season 13 commenced.  I undertook to get a full set of Warlock PvP gear

   Warlock in 476 Malevolent Gladiator gear

and finally completed a version of it after 93 battleground runs, 1389 honorable kills, and collecting 26,957 Honor points for the season so far.  Of course, that is nothing, zero, zip, nada.  One of the Horde characters who ganked me more than once in Gilneas had 41,000 honorable kills, not to mention the ability to fend off anything I had to send against him.  So it's not just the gear.  There are playing skills that I do not currently have and, it would seem, never will have.  I also think that when trying to knock down a steel wall using one's head as the battering ram, the massive blood flow is a sign to stop trying, not to keep going.

B. Looking over the class reviews that Blizzard posted on its client, I sought out Warlock, and saw some humorous (to me, anyway, given the above) remarks about trends:

   Warlocks, shamans, rogues

particularly the comments by Larveyza, Lightoftah, and Mightydiablo.  It's not just Warlocks that Blizzard is after, it's the whole game.  See the remark of Crotchheight...Blizzard is indeed melting all classes into one piece of sludge, and the game into something as dreary and uniform as Guild Wars II.

C. After the time-consuming, yet instructive, exercise above what do I come away with?
    Answer: PvE is nice, in comparison.  I feel slightly re-energized toward getting better PvE armour, completing LFRs, and putting up with the endless reputation quests.
    Also, the PvP armour is much better looking than the hideous PvE armour for MoP.  The PvE armour often reminds me of pandas, and pandas nauseate me.

20130224, dimanche and 20130228, jeudi

A. Finally!  I got the Windwalker monk to level 90 today.  Levels 1 to 85 were fine, but 86 to 90 were a huge discouragement.

B. I've done two monks from 1 to 90 since MoP came out.  From this I can say that

1. Windwalkers and Mistweavers are mostly OK, but I don't care for Brewmaster monks.  
2. The constant references (visual and auditory) to sloppy drinking (tea and beer on the clothes and ground, not in the mouth), belching, vomiting (Stormstout and so on), and other bodily functions are not just declassé, they are just plain disgusting.
3. I like the content of WoW before MoP, but not since.  Compared to MoP, I'm starting to like Outland.

• Pandas are even more disgusting than goblins, both the stupid and gawky males and the death-mask faces and too-cutesy ways of the females.
• Pandaria is my least favourite continent.
• I could not get through Pandaria quests fast enough.
• Pandaria reputation system is a sorry piece of nonsense, easily ten times worse than the Firelands. The number of dailies is just horrific.

C. It's good to fly in Pandaria at last.  Then again, what's the point?

D. For every expansion, the game begins again at the toplevel.  MoP is no exception.  Pluses and minuses:

1. The treadmill of going through Pandaria heroic dungeons is something I'm not looking forward to.  There are 9 heroics, and several of them are extremely tedious.  I have 4 more characters to send through this meat grinder to get 463 armour to allow entry to the LFRs.
2. The LFRs might be worth suffering through the drudgery of the heroic 5-man dungeons.
3. Then again, maybe not.  The LFRs yield the 476 and 483 armour, which is not as good as the reputation based armour, levels 489 and 496.
4. The cost is having to do massive numbers of dailies for the required reputation.
5. Being in a guild that can prosecute 25-character (heroic) raids everyday gets one the best armour, some of it at 509.  That's currently not available to me.
6. So, to do well in MoP, one needs to be in a level 25 guild large enough to field 25 character teams to run heroic raids (not LFR) regularly.  Ah, well, I suppose that was always true.

E. I have 5 level 90 characters now

1. Healer, iLevel 481: Mistweaver monk
2. Healer, iLevel 472: Holy Priest
3. DPS, iLevel 462: Affliction Warlock
4. DPS, iLevel 445: Frost Death Knight
5. DPS, iLevel 440: Windwalker Monk

F. Two more on the way:

1. DPS, iLevel 88, iLevel 423: Balance Druid
2. DPS, iLevel 85, iLevel 387: Fire Mage

G. I'm not looking forward to the 5.2 'patch' since Mistweavers will be getting significant nerfs.

20130216, samedi

1. I bought Guild Wars 2 as a possible replacement for WoW on 20130102.  So far it has been a brutal disappointment.  It's not as fun or as well put together as GW 1.  Worst of all, every time I play it I have flashbacks to the weeks (maybe 3, total) spent trying to enjoy Everquest II.  The horrid way the characters move, the stupid cut scenes for interactions with quest givers, the poverty of the art, and the weakness of the music and foley are all reminders of EQII.  Overall, GW 2 has the rushed look of something thrown together in six months to satisfy an investor, rather than the overall excellence one might expect from six years (2006 to 2012, late) of dev time.

2. My former lead character Chronospanda has Mistweaver armour at average iLevel 481, so I can continue LFRs in patch 5.2.  I have no good expectations here; the nerfs announced for Mistweavers look substantial.  I changed the race of Chronospanda from panda (ecch) to human, and changed the name to Chronosmwone.  That helps a little, but not enough.

3. I've been leveling Chronosmonk (56 to 86 lately) by switching to Mistweaver (still good for leveling) from Windwalker.  As I approach level 90, I've been collecting the Agility laden armour I will need for the conversion back to Windwalker/dps.

4. My holy priest, Kronospriest, has reached average iLevel 472.   Holy priests at level 90 have a small rotation set of heals that give reasonable to good performance in LFRs with next to no requirements of experience before level 90.

5. When I look at my spell bars for my level 36 priest, the intersection is minimal.  The powerful spells the level 90 character uses repeatedly are absent for the 36 priest, and spells in the small toolset the 36 priest has are all too weak to be of much use to the level 90 priest.

6. I leveled Kronospriest first as Discipline, which went slowly.  Then I converted to Shadow, and leveling sped up.  Switching to Holy after reaching level 90 seemed almost effortless

• read noxxic.com for recommendations on Holy Priest
• read a bit more in icy veins
• implemented some of the recommendations
• kept the recommendations in mind when getting new armour
• realigned my spell bars so I can cast easily the 6 or 8 spells a Holy Priest actually uses.

So, after an hour or so of research, I was ready for LFRs.  (Did not say I was the best, but I am seldom if ever the worst.  Yay, noxxic.)  The depth of experience one might get from leveling 1 to 90 was not needed, and may have proved detrimental.

7. I've had similar experiences with Affliction warlock and Fire mage.  Throwing out just about everything from levels 1 to 85 and going with a short rotation meant for level 90 seems pretty rewarding.  I've more or less abandoned my DK since my past experience seems relevant, but just is not successful.  Sigh.

20130116, mercredi

5.2 misgivings, concerning mistweaver monks...

5.2 monk preview

The nerfs are on the Mistweavers; the buffs are on Windwalkers and Brewmasters.  The nerfs from 5.1 were sufficient to make the mistweavers second/third class citizens among healers.  The new wave of nerfs breaks the mistweavers' backs.

In preparation for 5.2, I'll be moving my Priest from Shadow to Holy, and getting his average iLevel to 460, as best I can.  I'll put the Mistweaver in abeyance.