Holy Paladin in 4.0.1 - Part I

I am one of those people that do not moan about their classes. Well not much. It seems this time around its kind of harder to do. Holy paladins are changed, but I am not sure yet if they are 'damaged'. Let’s review what I did do once I went 'live' and how that did work out...

Rebuilt the Gui to the state it was minus Satrina Buff Frames. I currently do not have anything informing me about procs and transient states appart from the default 'Power auras' and some Pitbull 4 notations. This defo needs tweaking...

Bought some new Glyphs as per Rohan's advice which I found quite useful.

Now the hard part...

I tweaked my Haste, Critical and Mastery to the following (unbuffed):

• Haste 728 (quite low by some reports for 4.0.1, more than adequate for 3.X)
• - Crit 39% (probably could do with less as crit is less usefull now)
• - Master ~10% (this is new territory and current reports state that logs do not measure absorbsion - need to check)

With those options and the same talent trees Rohan suggested (31,0,5) I participated in a guild run in ICC, doing some heroic modes.

My reports are:

Paladin healing is, obviously, very different - it looks like we need some time to adjust to the new paradigm. Main changes went from a Pace-type of healing (FL repeatedly for minor damage, HS+Glyph for larger damage+splash, Beacon, shields etc) to a more synergetic style. Holy shock is our secondary resource "counter", Word of Glory is our mana-free-instant counter reset-er and we now have 3 core 'time' heals:

• Divine Light (expensive, slow and very-high-output)
• Holy Light (cheap, average-to-small output)
• Flash of Light (expensive, ultra-fast, high-output)

Coupled with the aforementioned:

• Holy shock (mana based, instant, procs Holy Power)
• Word of Glory (Holy Power based, instant, procs acute pain to my fingers...)

We are much less 'capable' than other healers when it comes to healing meters. I am having trouble determining what our niche is with the current build and I hope this will change within the next few weeks and hopefully some correcting tweaks. Instant (therefore extremely situational) heals in small-damage scenarios (damage either was small or other healers very fast) feels kinda... "where do I fit in"... Last but not least, it is ESSENTIAL to built the UI in an informative way. It may take a couple of runs to adjust to "looking for the right things"

Overall...

1. I am having trouble detecting our niche
2. I need time to learn and put inside my head the timings
3. I need to gain some experience with the new synergies
4. We need to 'measure' Mastery - I am not sure there is a reliable method there. Kinda makes me feel like a Disc Priest
5. I need to make our UIs assist 'counting' and 'pacing'

And I most definitely need to do a few more runs with an alternative build to be able to have a better insight on how the new Holy Paladin paradigm feels. I am particularly intrigued by Eternal Glory and the possibility of chain-casting WoG (which if it does happen it will be eventually nerfed "to the ground"). All in all, I am sure we will be tweaked as things are noticeable inefficient and things look less favourable for the time being. But I could be wrong...

The Return of the Escaping Gnome

Ok, I have to admit, the title is not very indicative of what I am going to say. In fact I am not sure what I am going to say. You see the last few weeks I've been thinking of writing up something in my blog, its been a while after all. But I always felt there is not much to say. As if the fun was drained out from both the game and the surrounding activities.

Yet the last few weeks Escape started assembling back from the holidays and begun raiding again. In order to do that we started recruiting once again, to fill in the gaps and form a raiders group around the veteran core. It a process, we have been accustomed to and it is probably an inherit feature of guilds with a more 'casual' approach like ours - although only our schedule is per se casual.

As with most guilds in our status the question was either push for more HMs or go straight for a Lich King kill to satisfy the popular demand. We kind of did both last week. This week, mostly because our seasoned drill Searg...er... raid leader and GM was not around we opted for a more "relaxed" approach. Get our usual HMs, do not try anything new and overall try to have fun.

Not sure what was the deal, I am not to fuzzed about the technicalities of WoW these days, but our DPS was excellent - think the Boomkin did work wonders there - and the raid was...dare I say it... fun! Even the voices of the raiders were sounding happy. Jokes flew over, our resident gnome got teased, the old-farts exchanged insults and as always I slacked trying to read a couple academic papers while raiding. Yes, I admit I do that during normal modes...

All in all it has been a while I had fun in a raid. But most importantly it brought as smile in my face as I saw Escape sound and healthy after another summer break. It seems Cataclysm - which I have been checking now and then through Beta - will include lots of opportunities to play around with guildmates and get some nice guild-rewards. This was enough to renew my interest to World of Warcraft for a while.

I feel I'll be updating this blog more often now...

On holidays, beta invitations and mental health

It is amazing what a few days of holidays can do. Relax you, give you some time to think ahead, catch up. I have to admit there have been lots going through my head as I was packing my mountain-bike and trying to keep the dog calm on the back seat, the day my wife and me started our holiday.

Little I knew these days would make a huge difference in my recent approach to World of Warcraft…

The few months before this break found me skeptical of my WoW involvement and the ‘keenness’ of experiencing what we call ‘the end game’. I spent some time getting the Loremaster achievement, the achievement that means most to me. You see I love Warcaft lore and getting it kinda felt… appropriate. But apart from that there have not been many things I truly went after. Maybe the ICC drake for the 10-player heroics, but I am close to it and I will have my chances.

So as I logged before the holidays I felt I would not… hunger for WoW for a while.

It took me a week…

I got a beta invitation for Cataclysm and, although I have no means of downloading the client etc in my holidays, that kinda stirred something. I went to see screenshots of Cataclysm on MMO-Champion. The guild forum became busier and people started assembling for those 25mans– slowly but it is happening. Holiday season seems to reach its end.
And once again I realized how happy I am with my enthusiastic yet reasonable approach towards the game. I do like World of Warcraft, but not at the expense of my other hobbies and leisure. I like schedules, sign-ups, programs and goals. Planning ahead.

And taking some time to… catch my breath.

Holidays are indeed over. But it looks once again that WoW is not…

Catch you on the flipside…

Quick 'n' Dirty - VI

Felt like writing but have nothing specific to talk about. Or at least anything controversial, interesting or indeed though provoking.

We have been steadily progressing though ICC, having killed Putricide and Valithria last week on 25-player and everything up to Sindragosa on 10-player. Notice the politically correct use of `player' instead of man. Mainly out of courtesy to our female players. Yes we got a few and I must admit they are just as good if not better as their male peers. But that is beside the point... if there is one in this post...

Where was I? Ah yes, Putricide, Valithria and our new target, Queen Lana'thel. I must admit I find these encounters, or all of ICC for that matter infinitely more refreshing than ToC encounters, or indeed Ulduar ones. I wont even discuss the difference in the feeling of immersion of ICC, a rich instance in terms of areas, compared to the blunt Trial arena. The encounters themselves seem to me like a very nice combination of different mechanics. Movement, situational awareness, raw output, phases - all seem to be nicely orchestrated and combined, making the encounters challenging in a more involving way than in the past. It still does not beat the feeling I had with Black Wing Lair but hey, different times.





And on top of all, the Gunship encounter. For me, this is one of the most enjoyable encounters, mainly because it reminds me of Pirates, Start Wars and Boba Fett (The Return of the Jedi rumble over Sarlacc's Pit). I mean, how cool is that? Jumping off the Alliance ship, with rockets on the back, landing in the midst (or something close) of battle. This has to be one of the most immersive fights!

All of the above would be even more enjoyable, if it was not for the stupid lag of the past weeks. Nevertheless, we had some nice raid days the past week, around challenging encounters and a constant smirk in my face as I look froward to meeting him again...

Lag, gear, raid fillers and poor performance

Its been a while since I posted here and the reason was once again too much work in the way. I have been travelling the last week and I have been having chain meetings the week before. Being exhausted from the whole thing had a sever impact in my performance in guild raids. Granted, I have never been our guilds best healer but sometimes I feel I am just not outputting enough and I am not helping my guild.



So, I have been thinking about what needs to be done, insight to my performance etc. My conclusions? As with anything in Warcraft I sometimes I feel I got the right excuses. Other times that I am just fooling myself, or simply trying to find excuses for being poor. But in any case here is my brainstorm...

Real Life tiredness:

Its probably the most important reason but raiding after a tiresome day or a trip in the Middle East definitely has an impact on performance. I have noticed that after some time my responses are much slower, my anticipation of incoming damage is crap and I generally make poor judgements. What I am optimistic about though is when I fuck up, I know what happened. I just need to fix it. And start getting some sleep before raids. After all I DO raid to relax and get my mind of things so I might as well be more... prepared for it.

Gear:

I must admit I have slacked in getting proper gear. Things of course did not improve by missing a few raids or working on my own on my toon but I have also been reluctant in mix-and-matching new items as they come. In other words I have not been bold enough and thought a bit too much on what items I should have. However, I started tweaking things yesterday and I feel this can be solved easily.

And my favourite subject of all, the grand excuse as I say...

Tech healing vs Nuke healing:

(Check here for differentiation, I often call tech-healing anything that does not involve an HL nuke)

Yes, I know its being used a lot as an excuse but in my case its probably very applicable. I have been closely monitoring my performance on 10-mans and I must admit I have no problems there. In fact I have been doing just fine. I always felt 10-mans are more challenging, there is a lot of player-intervention due to the smaller number of raiders. Simply put, there is more room to heal, dps and make a difference. Now, being a Technical healer since I remember myself I am used to having a `pace' in my healing rotations that accommodates the 10-man damage patterns more than anything. In those scenarios you do not only need to output more, but in the right time. And you need to do that along with your healing peer or peers. That is - in my humble opinion - the ultimate challenge. And I have been feeling that on the healing front 10-mans are much better tuned than 25-men. Or - if its not the raid mechanics themselves - two or three healers of different class work better together than a mixture of 6,7 or 8 classes .

Now, monitoring our raids for the last few days I noticed that nuking paladins make a huge impact. Granted, in some scenarios they can not keep up with aoe-healing classes. But generally speaking the Holy-Light splash seems to work just fine. Only recently I had to adjust my healing to err on that side after some... insight, former guild-mates. Now, call me stubborn or a dinosaur. I just can not do it to the max. I feel its immensely more fun to try to squeeze that Flash of light in the right time. Unfortunately I have to keep up with times. And I have always been a `mainstream' person, hence I am reluctant in going for a proper Flash of Heal build (which needs some fine gear to work properly). I have been therefore constantly trying to pick up my healing output, while not loosing much on awareness and mobility. Although I have had some silly deaths the few recent weeks - 90% of which where because I either tried to do too much of took calculated risks which obviously were not calculated properly :-p - I was always proud of my awareness. But check point 1 and you will see how it all comes together...

At the end of the day though, I have been wondering what is the importance of that person at the bottom of the healing meter list - where I have been ending up quite a bit. Could the raid do without? Well. Probably. But just to give myself a pat on the back - excuses excuses... - it you take that person, the filler as I like to call it - you will most probably crumble. Cause healing is not only about how much. Its also about when. And if that person at the bottom of the list heals in a timed manner, the odd heal might make a difference in dying or being repeatedly healed by different healers. In other words, I'd like to believe I am the one that prevents death, while others just fill up your healthpoints bar...

Unfortunately, Silvermoon server is in a very bad state and lag is more abundant than bones in Icecrown. Lag is definitely not helping us a lot and trying to Tech-heal in such an environment is just impossible. So I end up trying to nuke, which seems not to work as I'd like it to be.

All of the above might be simply an excuse and the real reason of my poor performance is not being able to cut it any more. But, one thing I've got is being stubborn. Extremely stubborn. And I still have not said my last word...

On marriage, honeymoon and Gearscore

After a brief break, involving a marriage, a honeymoon in NYC, lots of shopping, Rock of Ages, Nicks vs Bobcats, Nutcracker, Tavern on the Green, lots of walking around, Xmas, carols and a variety of greasy food I am back in the world of Azeroth and my not-so-frequent blogging. Catching up on Frost emblems and Ashen Verdict reputation naturally involved the odd PUG. And although the new LFG gimmick works quite nicely for my 5-man ventures I am still reluctant to join challenging runs of more than 5 toons.

Nonetheless, in an effort to overcome my fears, aided from missing all ICC guild raids this week, I was keeping an eye on the general chat. The debate was on Gearscore, the controversial add-on which you eventually (probably) end up hating. And it made me think...

Using the sum of a set of values and ending up with a scale is a fairly simple notion. Add-up all the item levels and there you go. You just compare sums between them, or categorise them.

Good? Well, not really. Bearing in mind having the best item level in our gear is not always the best option (considering class design, BiS items etc) the scale is not descriptive (or comparative) among classes. A GS of 5200 for a Paladin might effectively be worse than that of say 5165. Or 5200 for a DK is not the same as for a warrior for example. Moreover, its purely indicative of the gear a player has obtained. Which, granted, does say something about someone's experience/skill but can often conceal a lot. On the other hand, Blizz themselves use a similar approach in the achievements score. So as an approach is not necessarily flawed. People end up debating about GS, advocates claiming its a scale that does show effectively how far your toon has been in raiding, where as the opposition claims that it does not depict skill and it is a crude way of selecting people for a run.

I personally hate it for a number of reasons. One, its badly implemented (knocking the add-on, not the scaling method) due to the high lag it causes. Silvermoon EU is probably one of the laggiest servers around anyway. Using GS during raiding is a definitive nono and we often had trouble with it in the past.

Moreover, it definitely does not show how good/skilled one is but it does show how dependable one *might* be - kind of like minimising the risk by getting in a run someone who at least seems to have gone the extra mile. I personally still consider the Armoury as a whole to be more descriptive as its kind of like your toons Curriculum Vitae. Obviously using the Armoury in order to assemble a PUG is kind of an overkill but in my eyes its the only way to maximise the probability of ending up with a decent raid. And that is what handed us a descent run (5/12 and almost 6/12 10-player ICC) yesterday. Not bad for a PUG.

Last but not least, GS disrupts the flow of raiding within the community. The latter being because everyone and their mother is asking for a GS of 5xxx while their GS is crap. Only to be 'carried' on someone's back and get loot. People that have been away from the game for various reasons can not catch up, unless something gives. Bearing in mind people ask both GS and achievements in order to accept one in a run catching-up can be very frustrating.

To sum things up, I am now a married man, the honeymoon was lots of fun, Rock of Ages is wicked, Nicks won, Tavern on the Green was marvellous but stopped serving till God knows when, Xmas is over, greasy food out of the system and GearScore sucks.

Arthas & Co. will have to wait

So here we are... Patch 3.3 imminent, wedding imminent and I am ready to go all guns blazing. I hope I do not confuse the church with Icecrown and yell to the priest (the real one...) 'die Arthas'!!!

Oh well, I bet you can imagine how I feel now. My guild is about to venture to Icecrown, the very instance I waited for years. They are ready to unleash our newly-replenished, mighty, raiding-team to fight the Scourge and get epic and legendary loot. Ready to crunch our way to the ranking ladder once again. Eager to slay all those that oppose us and forcefully immerse themselves to the ending of the most popular part of the Warcraft lore. Well, as much of the lore as they will see in a couple of weeks, anyway...

Nevertheless, I wont be around. Not for a while at least. Although, I will have a brief chance to see the new instances in the next couple of days till the wedding. Well, that is if my wife-to-be allows me to do so... You know how women are...

I am happy because the guild has seemingly recovered from a bad period when it comes to raiding. But we kept our cool and our composure and we are back again with what appears like a capable roster. And we will continue to strengthen more. And if all goes as planned, get some nice ranking kills. I will be away for two weeks and I am confident my guildmates will carve their way into Icecrown.

On the other hand I am about to enter a new territory in my real life. That of a married man. Whatever than means. Sounds like a role-playing thing if you ask me. Without the dragons. Well, the non-hostile ones :p. And epic rings. I am not sure what lies ahead. Only thing I know is that me, my wife and our dog are about to enter a new era. And I feel good about that too.

So, just as Escape will unleash hell to Icecrown, we will visit NYC for our honeymoon and the ultimate urban fix.

Arthas will have to wait till we get back. See ya in a couple of weeks.

Effectiveness VS Efficency

Preamble

Effectiveness is doing the right things. Efficiency is doing things right.

What I am often skeptical about is what `doing' means. Merely 'doing' or actually achieving what you initially set out to do? Cause, if your goals are not achieved... you are definitively not effective, no matter how efficient you tried to be. But if you were effective, where you as efficient as you could be?. So for the sake of argument...

Effectiveness is achieving your goal doing the right things. Efficiency is achieving your goal by doing things right.

With my definition, being rather close to the Greek translation of the word, efficiency implies effectiveness. Nonetheless, effectiveness does not necessarily imply efficiency.


I have started writing a post, a few minutes ago, on guild policies and ethics. Somewhere in the middle of my rumbling I got stuck, re-thinking of what exactly I am trying to put across. You see, I am a fan of efficiency. I like things done in a clear, defined and well documented way. The latter part in particular is essential. Guild ethics and rules do not only have to be clearly defined, they need to be conveyed, particularly by the guild members actions. The obsession with efficiency is probably due to my academic and engineering background, as I do not merely want to make things work, I want to make them work with minimal cost, effort and time.And yes, I know everybody wants that but... bear with me :p

I often see that this efficiency is not desired by those around me. People have different needs and the extend one goes to achieve his or her goals varies. People like to go from A to B in circles, or zig-zag, others in a straight line. People walk, fly, crawl. That variety is definitely part of what makes us human. But it is also the reason we rely on deterministic machines to do a great many things in life. Or the reason anything advanced is often based on standards. Because merely being effective is ok. But being efficient in modern time saves money, time and... keeps the blood pressure down.

World of Warcraft is essentially the same. Its a large shared virtual environment, even larger bearing in mind the community of players as a whole and not specifically that of a class/server/guild or any sub-grouping available. People bring their personalities in-game and although the set of actions that one can perform is far less than that of real life, many observations from our real world apply in Azeroth as well. People in WoW are every bit as ineffective, or far more frequently inefficient as in real life.

Take a guild for example. Whats its purpose? Mainly collaboration. People come together, just as real life associations, to achieve efficiency. Nowadays, more than ever in WoW, one can be merely effective in-game by joining a pug, doing the same instances that everybody else does, albeit in normal modes or a tad later than others. There is of course a group of players that come together to do more things faster, with less resources spent (time is the key here) and with greater ease (that blood pressure mentioned above). Therefore do things with efficiency. And there is a group of players ignorant to the above but we leave those for the wolves to eat...

However, people often confuse those terms and start bending guild rules, become less vigilant in performing their best or completely disregard anything that augments collaboration. They initially are happy with merely being effective and gradually become self-absorbed, self-seeking and self-serving. Shattering any notion of effectiveness, let alone efficiency.

I can not help wondering, why these people stay in a guild. Or even worse, why a guild puts up with them. I appreciate they may have a social value. However, in terms of the guilds' purpose not only they do not add any value but they also affect negatively their peers. Being put aside as reserves is the polite way of dealing with them. I bet you know the non-polite (high)way.

The solution of course to this issue is efficiency. Yes, the very same notion one tries to achieve, is the basis of achieving them. Efficiency in defining and applying guild rules and ethics. Excruciatingly militaristic efficiency, even for the casual-est of casual guilds. Because above all, a guild must preserve its self. It must cater even for the smallest things with great effort, or it will become something else entirely. A collection of inefficient individuals, branded together with no apparent goal. And there is no Escape from that...

Raiding, Marriage and tales from the crypt

I'll tell you one thing's for sure. Preparing for a wedding is like preparing for a raid. One, you need the proper gear. Two, you need consumables. Three, you got to do some reading beforehand. Four, you assemble a group and assign roles. Five, you wear rings...epic ones...and halos. And you videotape it and take screenshots for you to remember it. And people whisper...and behind your back. And you send invites! And people kinda sign-up and come over and eat consumables. And there are beasts and formidable creatures!! You know, ugly aunts and good looking females. And at the end of the day you are - hopefully - left with some extra gold and some loot. God dammit, getting married is like going into a fucking raid!!

I am sure you can appreciate that preparations are taking quite a bit of time and especialy hinder my blogging. But I have never been a very frequent blogger. Nonetheless... There is often something to write about. The wedding is one part. The waiting is the other...

Escape, has proven numerous times its very resilient. We had ups and downs, ins and outs. And we are kinda down these days. Many of our raiders are away for real life reasons. Some got tired of - what I consider the worst instance I have ever seen - ToC. Same place, no variety. Granted, the challenge is there but as far as I am concerned the scenery goes a long way. So we ended up loosing quite a few raid nights due to that. And we are not alone it seems...

Many guilds suffer from what I like to call a 'pre-patch trauma'. People for all sorts of reasons find excuses to stay out of the game. Contrary to after-patch times when people make time to be in-game and use excuses `out there', in the real world. I appreciate many people have ultra-valid real life reasons to stay out. But you can not change my view, we do make time to be in-game when we want. And at this time people do not want to be in-game. Simple as that.

Inevitably that leads people of no emotional attachment - or a weak one for that matter - to their guild to move to the... `upper echelons' of the guild hierarchy within a server. Its not the guilds that attract those raiders, that continue to raid no matter what. Its the raiders themselves that keep gathering up and forming such guilds.

The rest of us, those that have some attachments to the guild they are into await patiently for others to return. Hoping that when the time comes we will grab our axes and yell our battlecries.

I just hope this will take place before my wedding, otherwise I will miss a couple of weeks of the fun!

Quick 'n' Dirty - V

Its been a while since I updated my blog, once again being swamped with work and preparations for my wedding. Particularly the latter needs a bit of work :p. We are also planning slowly our Honeymoon on New York City! Exciting times! I think we are both much more thrilled for the trip than the wedding itself. But hey, we are in this together :p

Nonetheless, I did spent some time in WoW the last couple of weeks. Escape managed to slay Northrend Beasts in heroic mode and now we set our sites on the next hard-mode. Otherwise I spent some time to set up an inscription busyness to complement my herbalist/alchemist DK, manly created to supply Lance with consumables. The scribe is on my GFs account and his sole purpose is to put in the AH the leftovers of the DK. And its been doing well, I have more or less managed to level up inscription to 330 with minimal expenses, funding myself from AH sales.

I've got myself a copy of Windows 7. Ok, either Win7 are a massive improvement to Vista or my Vista install was pretty knackered. I am seeing an increase in FPS of over 300% in areas like Icecrown with full settings. I am pretty sure Win7 are NOT supposed to be that good (or better) and the never-underestimated power of a clean install worked like a dream. But hey, can't complain :p.

My dear friend Thoryel called me one day and informed me about Torchlight. Sounds and looks very promising and I am sure I will put my hands to it when time allows. I am also excited about patch 3.3 lore-wise but I wont even begin to comment on the Tier10 robes and the recent LoH Forbearance `band-aid'. I will be patient to comment on the 'final' version of things.

/Lance

Modern day heroes and growing older

Those of you, those precious few, that read my blog most probably have realised I am a wow lore aficionado. With a tiny obsession with Arthas. Granted, I am not as knowledgeable or imaginative as others, like Lorecrafted, but I am into it enough to provide myself a role-playing background to my involvement with the game.

World of Warcraft, is definitely not much of a role-players game. Or at least I do not feel like it is. Here we are in an epic turmoil, ready for the battle of our lives (or...this patch anyway), among heroes and villains of the past, yielding powerful artefacts... and we talk about talent specs, encounter logs, recruitment applications and various other mundane aspects using a language known as... leet.

Not very epic, I know. Add to that the ever-present teenagers that ruin the game of us mature (sic!), 'academic' players with their naive approach to the game (the correct vernacular term being "they act as noobs")... well the feeling of immersion goes out of the window...

Buuut...

We are still here, playing, filtering the people we hang out with on-line, trying to carve our ways into this colourful shared virtual environment. Why? Case we escape from our realities more often than not. Because after we stop thinking how moronic this 13year-old-tank-that-went-afk-to-have-lunch-cause-his-mother-yelled-at-him is, we start adoring our toons, admiring how heroic they look as they fly through the forests of Grizzly Hills, towards Icecrown, ready to do their part for peace, victory, judgement and honour.

Our toons have become our modern day heroes. No more Spiderman, Batman, James Bond or whatever we thought was cool when we were young. Or toons our our own personal heroes. Things are not 'awesome' any more... They are 'imba'...

P.S. And yes, it gets worse as we grow older... We have a saying in Ancient Greek... Τίμα το γήρας, ού γάρ έρχεται μόνον, meaning... fear old age, for it never comes alone (but along with its nasty side effects)...

It's begun...

This post is essentialy continuation of the previous one. Between them I was fortunate to read Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by C. Golden, going through the most important aspects of Arthas' personality. And that spinned-off this post, essentially completing the previous one... Forgive the repetitive pattern here, its here for a reason.


It's begun...

These are the words that start the Wrath of the Lich King era. These are also the words that end Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by C. Golden. Fitting. The book presents the life of Arthas from his 9th year, where he meets Varian, admires Terenas and begins his training With Uther, the Lightbringer and Muradin. It goes all the way to the moment where the death Knight Arthas lifts the helm of Ner'zhul's armor and wears it, fusing himself with the entity of the Lich King. However...

Two parts of the book, the very first and the very last present us that internal battle between what Arthas was, what he was temporarily become and what he will be. To put a few words to it... there is no more Arthas. There is no more Ner'zhul. Just the Lich King...

In-game we encounter numerous times Matthias Lehner, allegedly the avatar of Arthas' youth. I am afraid this is merely a vessel for us, to find in-game what happen to the last prince of Lordaeron. Tirion even tries to make sure there is no bit of him left by examining what appears to be Arthas' stored heart after a covert mission we participate into.

Nope, no happy ends here.




We are about to unleash a fierce attack to Icecrown Citadel. Jaina, once his great love, Sylvannas, product of one of his most gruesome acts, Varian, reminecent of his happy youth, High Lord Saurfang, victim of his latest acts and Darion, once his servant, now his enemy... are about to assist us bringing him down.


I am not sure how each one approaches this encounter. For me, being such a fan of the Plaguelands, of Scholomance and Stratholme, of the Ashbringer and the Silver Hand, Arthas is the ultimate villain. Ultimate by the fact that he is so complex. From the moment he sees his horse, Invincible, being born, to the very moment where in his dreams he trusts Frostmourne to the young boy Arthas and the old Ner'Zul... Arthas is a collection of emotions. Great expectations, commitment, love, courage, strength, eagerness, betrayal, happiness, despair, desire, resolve, indifference, hatred, vengeance...

I find it sad that many will enter Icecrown Citadel for the next tier of loot. For the next hardcore challenge. I find it sad that many people are unaware of the story of Arthas. That many have not played Frozen Throne, even just to see who he is. Because ultimately Arthas, with his emotional complexity is much more real than many characters of Azeroth.

And for that, he deserves juctice...

Icecrown attack, imminent

Its been a while since I posted, simply because there has not been much progress on my part in game. I completed What a Long, Strange Trip it's been, got my violet drake, got a few upgrades, some off the AH and some from looting. But its been quiet, with no new kills. We are kinda stuck on Northrend Beasts in hard mode, not aided much from a rather unstable roster due to various in-game and real life reasons. Nonetheless, we have been there before and we are going back with a vengeance this week as well.

Tiny spoilers below...

But the big news are on another front. Patch 3.3, or at least its first version, is on the PTR. Blizzard is introducing a very interesting collection of 5-man challenges. New quest lines, historical weapons, lore figures add to the mix of what appears to be an involving adventure in 5-man instances. And its been a while since we had one of those.



Icecrown Citadel starts with a 5-player dungeon, consisting of three wings in the citadel's foundation. Players will assist Jaina Proudmoore (Alliance) and Sylvanas Windrunner (Horde) in infiltrating, commando style and through the back-door, the citadel, while the Lich King focuses on the attack of the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade. Their purpose, simple. To weaken the Citadel's defences. Kind of like a Dirty Dozen type of thing, only with... well, like half the dirtbags. Interestingly, we have to complete one wing to get to the other. Adds flavour, I can't complain. Normal and Hardmodes are available with each wing being on a separate lockout timer. Rewards for those interested will probably be between 219-232 item level.


The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection are the three wings, where we will meet some... interesting foes. The reports say we will encounter... Frostmourne, as we enter what appears to be the Lich King's private chambers. Falric and Marwyn, captains of Arthas Menethil in the past, now commanders of the Lich King, as well as the true prince of darkness...no wait, that is Ozzy... I mean the Lich King, the true prince of Patch 3.3, await for us.

Waaait a second... If we encounter the Lich King in a 5-man... who do we encounter in the Icecrown Citadel raid? And, while we fight him... what happens to Jana and Sylvanas?

I am not sure what will happen, not I have been monitoring the reports, the blogs and the general information sources. All I know is that we are weeks before what I consider the pinnacle of the lore already laid down. The rest that will follow are somewhat new things. Since Arthas became what he is now, the epitome of a fallen not-so-lawful 'good' person (kind of like Anakin becoming Darth Vader), to the chaotic evil being he is, I knew he would die, one what or the other from out blade. I can even say I have been playing in WoTLK for that very thing. To finally meet and kill that `old friend'. Redemption never looked plausible for me. Of course I may be mistaken, but I think the probability is pretty slim...

For me this encounter will be the end of a wonderful journey, along the path of life of Arthas Menethil, ever since I met him Frozen Throne. What is to follow when he is dead? Well, dunno, he is already dead in a sense :p. All I know is that once he is out of the way, there will be lots of new villains to get hooked upon. And I plan to do so...

Upgrades and Murlocs

So, amidst turmoil and introspection on my performance on recent raids, I got a few thingies that brought a smile on my head, whereas I am planning a few more.

I am now a happy owner of Grunty, the Murloc Marine marine... Yes, that is two 'marines' for achieving The Marine Marine achievement.... whatever. This is a funny pet. We went to get some Elementum ores for a guildmate's Thunderfury yesterday after out ToC tries. It was kinda late in Greece, around 01:00. My girlfriend was sleeping, dog was sleeping and even vent was boringly quiet. I think that is why I had left the speaker volume kinda high, trying to listen to my guildies... Suddenly....

...the murloc aims... AND STARTS SHOOTING... RATATATATATA!!!
(Check a vid here)

Ok, one of these days I am going to get a heart-attack from 'improper use of in-game sound mechanics...'.

Apart from Grunty, I got 3/5ths of the 245lvl Tyralyon set and an item from the 232 set. Things start to balance out on the gear front as I am trying to `up' my mana pool a bit more. ToC hard mode was not really forgiving for us this week, still a lot of things to tweak. But I think we can tackle the Northend Beasts soon.

Brewfest is the last achievements group towards What a Long, Strange Trip it's been - (notice the Grateful Dead reference there). At least I'll get my hands on a proto-drake, although I have been raiding for ages I still have not gotten my hands on any. Slacker... Not even the green one as I have been quite unlucky with luck-based rewards in WoW. Hopefuly, I'll find the time to do at least those Ulduar 10man hard modes.

Last but not least, its time to convert some accumulated badges to gems, both for sale and future upgrades. And start planning for non-armor items...

Guts 'n' balls... revisited

I often wonder what makes elite players truly elite. By elite I do not mean the wannabes of every server but the truly top ones. What makes them so efficient at what they do? Often people simply reply... time. Ok, time does indeed play a huge role in our involvement with the game. The amount of time we put into the game is often proportional to what we achieve. Or the other way around, but you do get the picture. But that is often an aspect of an individual, not the guild as a whole. So... what makes elite guilds tick? Fear of the RL? Some common jedi-like focus on the game? Magic? Money?

I'd like to think that its co-operation. World of Warcraft is by no means complex. Mathematics can be complex. Quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, augmented reality and space travel. These are complex. Scripted, repetitive encounters are not complex. What IS complex though, to some extent, is how you approach those encounters. Take a raid for example...

You got 25 individuals. One of them, at least, is busy up to his neck with raid leading. Possibly others with leading subgroups, like healers etc. The rest try to do a set task and do it as best as possible. Most of the times. When they do not slack that is. When the raid succeds all is well. But what happens when they fail?

One of the most important aspects of World of warcraft is that its a multi-player game. Not a solo game. Therefore, its safe to assume that teamwork does indeed play an important role. I often used to refer in the past to Manslow's pyramid of needs - depicted below:

Source: University of Tasmania (!)

I beleive that the three top layers can be extrapolated to the WoW environment through the notion of guilds. All of the features depicted in the above diagram can be met within a guild. Teamwork - expressed above in the Social tier but with hints to Ego and Self-Actualization - is an important element of a guild. Since most encounters require certain subgroups to micro-manage, its essential that those groups work together consistently to achieve their goals. Moreover, the members of these groups must maintain a good level of communication in order to rectify errors, achieve stability and hopefuly - and ultimately - improve performance.

Now, enough with the posh talk. Wow players must play together. They need to communicate, speak their mind in a polite way. There is absolutely no value in not expressing an opinion when you want to concider yourself a raider. However, this communication needs to follow some simple ethics. I remember when I filled in my application form in Escape a year and a few months ago there was one question. "What is your abuse tolerance level". Well, most of us said extreme. Quite rightfuly I might add. But at the end of the day I often thought that this tolerance is towards constructive critisism. One that is expressed directly from the person voicing an opinion towards the individual concerned. I expect my fellow raiders to come to me and offer their suggestions, critisim and ideas personaly. Thats when that question starts to mean something. When I will sit down and talk with them, reply to their suggestions. Otherwise, if they do not speak their minds I will not know of their opinion. And - I am not perfect by far - I may make a mistake. I must admit - and I am thangfull for it - that certain people do actualy come forth and speak their mind to me.

Raiding is more often than not about reviewing what you did. About being aware of your choices and making decisions. Its about communicating those decisions, tactics and concerns. When a guild does not communicate as it should, when people keep opinions for themselves - or use messengers to relay them... - the guild stops being that very thing, a guild. It becomes a pug, full of indifferent individuals who would rather talk with a sub-group of players with absolutely no benefit for the group, instead of trying to help out the group.

I am fortunate enough that I have a fellow paladin playing with me that he does have the balls to come and talk tactics and opinions with me. We recently had a talk, trying to gauge certain aspects of the encounters we are currently working at. And we adapt. This is teamwork after all...

Guts 'n' balls boys and girls. Come forward and have your say. I assure you, you will surprised from my answer (and this is not by any means a threat...)

Guts 'n' Balls

Ever though you got so many to say, so many things to curse for but you feel you must not do so? For `the greater good'?

Well, that is the spot I am into. Once again this week. A friend told me, when this game stops being fun its time to call it quits. Not sure if that time has come yet, I guess I have faith in some people and hope to see a change of things. So, I will pretend everything is fine and speak bout a subject in a `politically correct' manner, - whereas I would ideally like to be very non-PC...

I must admit, one of the hardest things in WoW is not to be included in your guild's raids. Even if they are just the non-scheduled ones. Granted, I have been fortunate enough to be a regular in the 25mans but 10mans are a often different story. And all that got me thinking of how tricky is for everyone, organisers and participants of such raids, to balance things out.

From the organisers point of view, there are two paths to follow. One is the `progressive' path where people pursue achievements, prestigious kills etc. I appreciate that its definitely better to go with a stable set-up to those encounters as the group gets more efficient with playing together for extended periods. Such raids offer good publicity to a guild when said progress is achieved. From the participants point of view they need to be punctual, follow the usually `internal' schedule (by internal I mean its often organised from raid to raid and not with the assistance of a raid subscription tool), come prepared to the max and do their best.

On the other hand, we have what I like to call `community' raids. Raids which offer a basic clear-out of instances or in the best case scenario some hard-modes AFTER having completed a basic set of goals. Their purpose is twofold. One is to mix and match the raid group and give the chance to more people to raid. Equally important - particularly with the current ToC badges - is the collection of a basic number of tokens for gear upgrades which ultimately lead to better gear for all guild functions. Unfortunately, such raids often have people that are either indifferent to hard modes or have been left out from `progressive' raids. Either way, such groups are trickier in achieving anything but normal clear-outs. Not impossible though, just trickier.

Naturally, those two groups often merge together, the progress raid being the predominant one. People have to adjust to this mentality, play their best even if in theory they come from the `casuals' pool. Note here that by casuals I do not mean in any extent less capable. I mean those that are not as often on-line as others. Because - in principle - if those players are much worse than their peers skill-wise, then they should not be in the guild in the first place.

Obviously, the problem is which path to take and how far you can merge these two groups. That is, if you can not afford two raids, one in the fast lane and one for the rest. To wrap it up, the advantages of those two categories are the following:

Progressive Raids

Pros

• Sought Achievements ontained
• Good guild PR when those achievments are obtained
• The joy of hard-modes challenge
• Progress, progress, progress
• Better gear for some

Cons

• Often, a seperation of a guild to `elite' and lesser groups occurs
• High concentration of gear to specific individuals - the rest get to be in guild functions in lesser gear compared to their 'elite' counterparts
• People of a casual raiding schedule can't follow - (although are often present when these raids take place...)
• Guild fragmentation and morale issues

Community Raids

Pros

• More people participate
• Gear is spread more evenly accross the available player pool, thus augmenting the whole groups capabilities (or potential)
• More people get the chance to participate in 10man content - and if the raid is good, get to complete hard modes
• Badges of more = more upgrades = better gear for more

Cons

• Rarely achieve well-sought progress
• Players often take their outcome for granted and underperform
• (Aledgedly) better players often disregard them for greater chalenges
• (Aledgedly) better players are unhappy with the non-take-no-prisoners attitude of the raids

I must admit that I am not sure which path I would follow. It is basically the very same reason why I stopped being a GM/officer etc. So that I wont have to decide such things. I have the utmost respect for those that take the effort to organise either of those types of raid. And to a great extent respect their choices.

But people suddenly loose that respect when they do not abide themselves to a few basic rules. Do not disregard people that have been with ya for a large period of time, do not `ninja' their raid IDs. Not when they are on-line at that time. At least have the courtesy to ASK them before you go and invite your out-of-the-guild buddies. Have the guts 'n' balls to tell people when you want to raid with one of your buddies, don't leave them waiting. Do not go behind their back...

Not when I respect you and the guild as much as I do...

Of course I might be exaggerating a bit. After all these raids are not a primary guild function and could be treated simply as someone else's raid. He or she leads, its their raid, their choice who they take and their choice who to talk to. Their rules, their game.

Lancebit the Paly and Lance the Dog

This week I got some real-life news...

A few days ago while returning home from an errand I was followed by a puppy. The place where I live is full of houses with fairly big gardens where most dog owners have their dogs running loose, pooping all over the place. Our municipality even has a playground for dogs, something not often encountered in hardcore-urban Athens. I expected the dog to belong to someone but nobody ever asked for it and there were no labels or a microchip on him.

So... the puppy followed my up to my parents house and back. He seemed relaxed, coping with my walking pace. As I walked back home, my girlfriend was on the garden, tiding up. When she saw the puppy she became ecstatic, making funny joyful noises. One thing lead to an other and now the puppy is under our protection for the last week or so. We took him to the Vet, did all the necessary check-ups, got some instructions and we are training him (and ourselves I might add...). And now Lancebit and Erlune have a real pet...

His name? Well, Lance ofc...

Lance 'in da house'

As for WoW? We cleared ToC10 and ToC25, starting on hard-modes, I got two 245level set items and some other assorted upgrades, got epic gems and planning further upgrades. I also upgraded my PvP gear and hoping to a rewarding Arena season. Arf!

A deafening silence...

Its been while since I wrote anything in the blog. I can not help thinking that I often have so much things to say but for various reasons I do not. I used to be a GM in my previous guild, writing huge walls of text with directions for my officers but at some point I lost the plot, they did as well and we all followed separate paths.

Nonetheless, not being an officer - therefore someone who is 'entitled' to speak about certain affairs - sometimes stops me from saying those things I want to say. Other times I am thinking of the consequences of what I will say, which bearing in mind my understanding of social norms in the game, can be devastating for my image and... my peace. Besides, its not my place any more to give instructions and I am immensely happy of not having that `burden'.

I am really sorry for not updating this blog more frequently but its getting really hard some times to keep my cool and enthusiasm for the game. Hard not to cry out a hurricane of feelings, observations and remarks. People do not like it when someone `knocks' their reality, just as much as I do not. I just hope that soon, I wont have to feel that way and people will see what is wrong and sort it out. Its so easy and apparent...that it is hidden like the best kept secret in the world...

We visited Koralon on 10-man yesterday, cleared ToC and then attempted the hard modes. Bearing in mind our set-up was not the best possible since we spread people over two raids and used alts and off-specs to fill in blanks I must say I am not surprised we did not get that far. I know the group that in theory had more `main' specs and a tad better composition got at least the first two beasts by the time I logged off.

The heroic modes do indeed seem quite challenging but I must admit I am sceptical on who long this will last. 245 level gear are fairly easy to grab, are quite an improvement compared to out Ulduar bits and I think the heroic modes will soon be conquered. Still, I never considered anything but the hard modes as a challenge and its a good one.

Apparently paid transfers are coming soon (they are available it seems in the US) and I am thinking of transferring my `pet' rogue who is decked in heirlooms to a horde side and when Cataclysm comes, level a goblin rogue for the kicks of it. Anyone know if heirlooms transfer with a toon when you do a realm/faction change?

Last but not least I began writing Lance's story. I am not gonna go into details but I want to use it as an alibi for certain changes I am planing for him.

Till then, I'll keep my mouth shut and my hammer next to me...

It's changing out there. There's a cataclysm coming...

It been a while since I posted as I was on a much needed holiday. I spent some time off work, along with my wife-to-be, by the seaside of southern Greece. I am sure those few of you that read my blog can excuse my absence. Yet, when I returned I was patient enough (or lazy enough) not to post anything as I expected this year's Blizzcon. My reasons where simple...

I met the Warcraft universe in WCIII. Naturaly, for a while I though Arthas was the ultimate Warcraft villan - up to the point I started catching up on Warcraft lore. Nonetheless, although there are more powerfull beings in this universe than Arthas, I always though an encounter with him would be the pinacle of my WoW life. Naturaly, when WotLK was announced I was sceptical. How will Blizzard top this? How will they come up with something with a punch that would keep us hooked, in a good way, with their next expansion?

At the time I believed it would be very hard and that the next expansion would not make such an impact.

And it seems I was wrong, very wrong...

Cataclysm seems to bring back the gloomy, dark environments even more than WotLK does. Deathwing is back and I must admit the icon of the dark dragon bursting with flame returning to Azeroth looks pretty daunting. The master of deception is back. And hopefuly Turalyon and Alleria will return to continue his hunt...

Nonetheless, there are two aspects of Cataclysm that add another dimension to the game. One is the revamp of the old world. Granted, some will be mad that the path to memory lane is going to be shattered. But I am one of those that feel that 'Vanilla' is sort of outdated in terms of environment detail and quality and the only thing that keeps me returning is those memories. But those will always be there. I want the feeling of immersion in the game to increase. And the change in the old world makes the environment feel alive. Gone will be the static areas, the never changing places. Deathwing comes, shatters the world and everything changes. As we see our real world change from the enviromental disaster our own 'existance' causes... As we see our towns and cities change. The environment becomes more organic - even if that is semi-permanent. Naturaly, the interest of going back to those places and 'mourn' for the disasters adds more depth to the visual. We are going to appreciate areas that were forgoten, simply because we will loose them. And that has impact. Thats proper immersion.

The other aspect I am sure I will enjoy a lot is Guild Talent trees and overal Guild related rewards. I always felt the concenpt of the guild in wow was left a bit 'uncultivated'. I always felt the devs could bring depth to the function of the guild. They started with Guild Banks. Now with Guild Talents trees (however they implement this). Now, you can have a definitive contribution to your guild apart from participating in raids and general farming and housekeeping. You can now work for the team. Your team becomes more organic itself.

Couple that with some nice lore involving Gilneas, maybe the guardians of Tirisfal, the tension between Horde and Alliance growing bigger, underwater worlds, flying all over... oh this is gonna be fun. The only thing that I regret is not being able to make a goblin rogue in my guild (we're alliance, doh!)... they look like they are gonna be the scum of scums! And how good that can be!

I bet someone will roll a Goblin...

Lance, Daiske and a hot mid-summer's dream

Its been quite a few days since I blogged, manly because I was up to my neck - once again - with work. But... I also tried a little wow experiment. After 4 years (I am not sure how long its been, I feel I have been referring to those `4 years' for ages) I managed to put myself in a mental state to level an alt. Granted, its a death knight and it feels like I am cheating :p. However, bearing in mind the whole `slackness' of the summer-time, I felt its a good opportunity to level up Daiske, my human (yes I can be really boring..) death knight. And level up alchemy on the side, to have one more useful profession available to me, as Lance is a miner and an engineer (as is yours truly... the engineer part, not the miner...).

I must admit that death knights are fun to play and sure as hell are a quick level-up. I am half-way to 68 and my plan is to hit Borean Tundra once I become 68. Contrary to Lance's path, Daiske will enter Northrend in BT and maybe, just maybe go to Howling Fjord once I get a couple of levels. Truth be told, the whole experiment is primarily done for the herbs and the flasks. That is why I am eager to enter Northrend. On the other hand, I must admit that gearing up in a relaxed manner a character, often checking the Auction House, drooling over gear I have never looked at and feeling that itchy hand caressing my wallet is... refreshing (ok ok, I am just trying to sound poetic, don't laugh). Yes, levelling Daiske brought some nice memories of the past, when I was levelling Lance to 60. When gear was out of reach and raiders seemed like semi-gods. Now things are different. So, going back, even if its for a few precious `virtual' moments... its sure is refreshing. If Daiske hits 80 then the next bit will be to get my `pet' rogue levelled up. Now that will be truly hard...

Lance is there though, going to the guild's raids - which by the way have not suffered from attendance that much - definitely much less than last year. I am still doing those AT dailies for the gold and the tokens. After all, that AT tabard and the new Charger are essential for a true paladin...

P.S. I also got season tickets for my favorite football team - (soccer to my US friends) which might result in me loosing a couple of raids in the future. But at the end of the day skipping a few raids has always been the trick to the longevity of my playtime in Wow. I still enjoy it a lot and those precious breaks now and then - or slowdown of gaming pace to be precise - kept me going.

P.S. Holidays are coming... Swimming with the missus under the hot Hellenic (correct term for Greek) sun... who cares about Arthas...