The Great Readjustment

I'm playing WoW again.

I hope you didn't forget me

I struggled with deciding to reup my subscription or not for a few days. I planned on getting Legion from the beginning, that plan didn't change, but I had been piecing together a long term plan.

First, I would prepurchase Legion, which I still have to do and am planning on asking for it for my birthday. Secondly, I would, as money allowed, transfer a few of my characters over to Chromaggus.

Why the transfer? First, some backstory to catch you up:

A Day in the Past: The WotLK Story

If you read The TBC Story, this story starts off right where that one ended. It's less self indulgence about me and my own personal history (but don't worry, I still managed to squeeze it in there) and more about the history of my long passed, best guild I'd ever been in.

To catch you up, after TBC release I screwed around as a non-raider until my guild exploded and asked me to go resto during T4. Fast forward through that guild dissolving shortly after, during T5, and over a year of me healing TBC progression in a new and better guild, and slow down around the end of TBC when I went back to balance.

flashback fade out, queue dream sequence music

TBC was the pinnacle of my raiding career. As I said at the end of my TBC story, at the homestretch of Sunwell, I was ranking as 4th best balance druid in the US and 12th best in the world.

A Day in the Past: The TBC Story

While I started as feral and fought tooth and claw to succeed and have my ability be recognized, at the end of Vanilla, a friend convinced me to go balance.

just add moonfire

He wanted to play my character late at night in WSG (don't tell Blizzard), so I let him. He raved about how amazing balance was in PvP and sent me many screencaps of impressive scoreboards. I think he was just a very good PvPer, but he did get me exalted with the Warsong Outriders, so there's that.

Because I was "stuck" as balance, I got adjusted to it, to the point where I realized, hey, I kinda like this. I stayed balance into TBC where I kept it while leveling and for the first three or four months.

In terms of socially being a subhuman low life hybrid spec, I definitely took a step backward. Feral got a lot better in TBC, while already ahead of balance in the first place. If I had stayed feral, I'd have achieved being a "real spec" a lot sooner, but as I've said before, I never back down from being an underdog.

Jungles, Shipyards, and Orcs Oh My

So 6.2 came out yesterday. This was me, today, on Wednesday.

zeroed in on the druid changes

Yesterday, I went on a day trip and played MH4U, forgetting there was a huge patch. So, I dove in today.

I updated my addons, - except for Master Plan since it wasn't updated and doesn't work and my life is in shambles - half assed some of my garrison chores, and built a shipyard. I'm killing orcs in Tanaan Jungle, and vaguely remembering that there was something about being able to fly.

pigeons?

I didn't read up a lot on the new patch. Honestly, I haven't been keeping up to date with what's coming in and going out in patches for awhile. This is the biggest patch of Warlords so far, and here is an exhaustive list of what I knew about it before today:

• A meta-achievement to grant flying but apparently not yet or something
• Timewalking and relevant weekends (which I wrote about)
• Tanaan Jungle, supposedly kinda like Timeless Isle
• New raid instance
• Shipyards are a thing

Funnily enough, I've really been looking forward to 6.2. Not for anything in particular really, since I haven't been paying that much attention, but for a dive into some (hopefully) exciting new content.

World of Identity Crisis

It's been a little under three months since my guild dissolved. We had been struggling since WoD's release, a veritable rollercoaster of events with an initial huge influx of new members, the splitting off of one of our best healers, followed by a full split of the entire guild where both our most casual and most hardcore people left the guild for different perceived reasons. Our GM quit and we tried to merge with another guild, which failed tremendously. We had just enough good people to hold on while we tried to rebuild, but recruiting was impossible. Of the about six good people that were holding us together, three of them left to greener pastures due to our stagnation. We were done.

We never made it to a level of progression and success that I was used to, and I've been struggling with Warlords as an expansion on its own since December of last year. Without a guild, a raiding schedule, or any interesting content, I haven't had much reason to play the game. I keep logging in, though, and I want to play. I don't know if I should look for a new guild or not. I feel completely conflicted about what I think I should do right now.

Pucking the Fug Up

While I've been pretty content to show up to some friend's guild raids and do casual stuff while I decide where I am in life and whether it's even a good idea to find a new serious guild right now, my elitist itch came back for awhile when I realized I would be locked out of [Ahead of the Curve: Blackhand's Cruicible] if I didn't down him before 6.2, which is currently in PTR and could come out any second now.

or like in a few months

I had some decent luck with doing pugs before, back when my guild was busy not doing any content, so I didn't think much of it until I realized that this was the final boss of the tier that I had done twice in LFR and never had any legitimate practice with.

I read up on the fight and I was relatively familiar with it, so I figured if I could just sneak into a pug that wasn't already asking for the achievement, I could just stay off the radar by not dying and just doing the dps thing I do until one of the groups I joined was good enough that we downed the boss.

Unfortunately for me, there is a niche mechanic that balance druids are known for being very good at, so I kept getting volunteered by other people who had no idea that I was unfamiliar with the fight. If I said I didn't know the fight or tried to talk them out of it, I'd probably be removed immediately anyway, so I opted to just try my best.

can't we just ask them nicely to stop throwing things

My best wasn't very good. For the first time in my life, I was removed from a pug for under performing.

Hardcore Casually Raiding

I really like raiding. After my guild dissolved, I basically stopped playing, since I didn't have anything to do. Despite pug raids not being quite as bad as they were once known for, they are still just angry conglomerates of people who all don't know each other. They are all just a means to an end for everyone in them, rather than being a group of players who are all familiar with each other joining up to enjoy time together.

typical pugs

I was pugging for awhile, but it was exhausting and unrewarding. There was no reason to hang out in a raid of random strangers killing bosses I didn't need. Considering the time it took to find groups, I spent several hours to kill just a couple bosses, especially since not every group would be successful. Pugging just doesn't amount to what raiding with a guild feels like.

The Art of Falling Behind

I think I'm looking at about the fifth time that I'll be behind the curve in game. It's been happening with more and more frequency as the expansions come and go, but the first time I ever fell behind was actually in TBC.

the one with the red hellfire peninsula

The difference back then was that I was still actively playing. Something about the game when I hit 70 prompted me to just chill, fly around, and farm rather than joining my guild in raiding. As I began to see more and more people in Shattrath with raid gear and, most notably, tier sets, I got frustrated and wanted to raid again. Unfortunately, I can never be happy playing the game without raid gear - yeah, just the gear. I really like raiding, but ultimately, it's the high end gear that I can't stand not having. I'm not saying I'm in favor of systems that grant raid gear to you without requiring some amount of raiding from you, just that basically I get frustrated when I'm not ahead of the curve. I know it sounds elitist, but I'm not really afraid to admit it.

Since my first raiding break back then, I have taken breaks from the game with increasing frequency and managed to always find myself needing to play catch up. Right now, in light of all of the work I've been doing to move and the fact that I still have rooms full of boxes and bags of clothes, I won't have much time, or frankly interest, to play to try and maintain my character between guilds since my latest dissolution.

The Tragic Ending

How ironic that not a few days after I post about the sad state of small raiding guilds due to Warlords' new raiding system, my guild finally kicks the bucket.

After putting up quite a fight, I'm honestly more surprised that we lasted as long as we did. The only reason I thought we could even pull through was due to our tenacity - but we took a huge hit as three of our best members, one an officer, split off.

Our GM had tried very hard to keep things together, but with this hit, he just gave up. I don't blame him. I was acting recruitment officer and I had been trying pretty hard to find people, but there was just no response. It seemed hopeless, but I figured as long as we had the people we had, we could eventually endure through it. That, of course, would have required keeping those people.

What Warlords Did to Guilds

8/10H thanks to random pugs and lots of perseverance

My guild has been through a lot since Warlords came out, but after finally being able to relax for a minute, I realized that it's not just my guild that's suffering - Warlords' new raid system set up has had a widespread, far reaching effect on the vast majority of guilds.

As we know, Warlords removed 10 and 25 mans as a thing and replaced all difficulties with flexible roster numbers, except for mythic, which is exclusively 20 - a number Blizzard probably looked at as a 'happy medium', and a solution to the 10 vs. 25 drama.

The problem now is that there's a large number of small guilds that need to recruit for 20 man rosters and not enough potential recruits to go around. Every 10 man guild from Mists is looking to bring on 10 or more new people just to reach mythic content, but there are nowhere near that many recruits looking to join new guilds. It's not like 25 man guilds had to shed any of their members - those extra five people simply had to compete for their spots and the losers likely stayed in their guilds to warm the benches. The result of the 20 man "happy medium" was that 10 man guilds were expected to scrounge for a minimum of 10 more people, while 25 man guilds had to do nothing.

written out it's something like this

"DPS Doesn't Matter"

The argument that, unless a fight is a DPS race, DPS doesn't matter is used very frequently in the general applications of this argument:

"I'd rather take someone who does less DPS, but takes less avoidable damage and doesn't die over someone who did more DPS, but kept dying."

Well, obviously, because the person who's dying is actually, in fact, not doing as much damage as the guy who did not die. Dying is the worst thing you can do to your DPS. If he's dying, he's actually not doing more damage, so you are, in fact, taking the person who is doing more damage.

Let's look at this argument from another angle - let's say, what if no one is dying? Who would you rather take:

1. Jim Bob who does 25,000 DPS, takes little avoidable damage, and doesn't die.
2. Bob Jim who does 33,000 DPS, takes little avoidable damage, and doesn't die.

Assuming we have no further information about these two people, that neither one of them brings a unique buff you need for your raid, and that you couldn't just take both, you would take the person doing 33,000 DPS.

What I'm getting at here is that DPS is, in fact, important - all the time.

shock and horror - disagreeing with a popular opinion

The Dark Times - a Guild Story

I figured there's no time like the present, and I've decided to regale you all with the tale of my third guild, that fabled year I spent with the worst guild I've ever been in. The first time I dedicated more than a sentence or two to it was the opening to my Experience post, but it was always a story for another day. I've waited long enough, so that day is today, or whichever day it happens to be when you read this.

Now, I mean no offense to anyone when I say this guild was 'the worst'. Mathematically, statistically, and operationally, it was undeniably less functional than any other guild I've been in. It's just fact. I had issues with only one member, and I put a lot of time, effort, and emotion into that guild.

Though the main catalyst that caused me to leave was directly related to a person within the guild, I imagine that after enough time, I still would have made the decision to part ways. It's doesn't feel good to accept putting my heart and soul into something while the people around me consistently fail without holding anyone accountable, without any signs of improvement. Even so, I was in the guild for an entire year - and it wasn't because they weren't always bad. Oh, they were always bad.

"Well, how did you even end up there if you think you're so great?" you ask me, accusingly. Yeah, I heard you - rude much. Well, what had happened was...

it was just a couple years ago...

When the Going Gets Tough, the Guild Gets Going

My guild has been through a lot in the past few months. It's easy to say that the people who are still there are some of the most loyal and determined people I've ever raided with. Some of them had been given offers to join better guilds, and a good chunk of them easily could have left to better guilds if they had wanted to - but they didn't.

Of the ones who left, I've heard here and there that a number of them have quit raiding or quit the game altogether, and the guild that formed from the departure of several long time members is currently lost in a trail of dust in progression.

I even recently found that a good chunk of the members in the guild from our failed merger stopped trying and chose to be absorbed by a much more progressed guild - something we've refused to do. All of this bedlam going on within and around us, and we're still here and raiding.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 3 - Focus

get dem numbers

Welcome to the third and final tips and tricks! Visit part one and part two where we talked about the importance of uptime and not dying.

I've written a guide before on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, you probably won't need much of this advice, but if you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

To recap, there is one ultimate truth to successful DPS:

Perform mechanics correctly while avoiding taking damage or dying and simultaneously continuing to perform your rotation efficiently and effectively.

Uptime is the most important aspect of this truth, which is the subject of the first post. Following uptime is not dying - arguably the most important aspect, but more widely known and understood than uptime. To tie everything together today, we have our last overarching theme, focus.

The Never-Ending Guild Trial

sigh

Well, the merger didn't work out. If you were any of the people I talked to about it, feel free to say that you told me so. To be honest, I was never totally sure it was going to be okay.

There were times when it felt like it was working out, but as reassuring as it felt, I was always aware of the unseen action in the background, the unspoken feelings, and the clear disinterest of several members in meshing together and becoming one.

We had weak links on both sides from the merger, but honestly a lot of the troubles had to do with poor organization and decision making. We would say, oh we're only bringing the best, then invite everyone who was online. Then say, oh we're going to cut the weakest members and tighten up this raid, and then we'd go four more attempts without doing anything about anyone. We'd say, we shouldn't waste anymore time on this boss, let's go somewhere else, and then not go anywhere.

We all knew what should have happened, but it seemed like everyone thought it was someone else's job.

Cop-out Day!

Well, I was trying to think of a post topic yesterday but nothing really came to mind. I actually usually write my posts a day or so in advance in case I'm busy that day, and as luck would have it, I'm going to be busy today and I don't have anything to write about! So this is my cop-out post.

cop-out is apparently the name of a movie

We had some trouble with our raid week this past week. We downed two bosses in heroic BRF, which is pretty lame for a guild that was 1/7M in highmaul. Some guilds that hadn't even downed heroic imperator were killing more bosses than us. Oh well. That's the way the cookie crumbles, or some other idiom.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 2 - Don't Die

Welcome to part two of my tips and tricks! Visit part one where we talked about the importance of uptime.

I've written a guide before on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, you probably won't need any of this advice, but if you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 1 - Uptime

goals

It always feels weird to me to talk about how I perform well. Maybe I feel like I'll jinx myself, or maybe it's my low self esteem or just a desire to present myself with some level of humility. Well, I'm throwing all that out of the window because I'll be writing a few posts with some detailed tips on how to DPS like you know what you're doing.

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, or a hunter, you probably won't need any of this advice, but in the wake of my recent guild merger, I feel like I've been asked "How did you pull off that much damage?" more often than usual lately.

I've written a guide before, it was actually my first, on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

If you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

First, the most important secret to successful DPS:

The Trial of the Guild Merger

1/7M!

This post is a day late because, well, I couldn't think of what to write about. This last week or so, I had been talking about a possible guild merger with another guild on our server. I had a busy past weekend, but after the work I did, the other officers and GM finalized things for us and we collaborated to practice for the merger by raiding together this week.

We cleared 6 bosses on heroic in quick time and practiced on Imperator, downing him our second raid night after three attempts. We had met after the raid yesterday to compose a mythic team, which we took with us to M Kargath, which we also downed last night.

The other guild was happy with us and our progress so we voted on a new guild name and we merged last night. It's pretty exciting, but there is a lot of work to do replacing the old name, getting us all in one place, organizing our roles and responsibilities, and just settling down together under one tag.

Qualifications: World of Warcraft Player

Video games are pretty often considered to be a "waste of time." Yes, excessive video game playing isn't the best, but overdoing anything isn't usually a fantastic idea. Fruit is great for you, but if you eat too much, you can get stomach ulcers because of the acidity.

but pineapple kicks ass

It's pretty undeniable that video games have distinct, quantifiable benefits. Of course, the benefits depends on what kind of game you're talking about. Simulation builder and construction games can teach you about resource management, risk vs. reward, and the value of preparation and planning. Even simple puzzle games have shown to greatly offset, or even prevent, the development and onset of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. There are war games purposefully and specifically used to help train soldiers in a safe, simulated enviornment. And, well, World of Warcraft can actually teach you a ton about the real world...