I Heart LFG.

Even if you don't need to use the new LFG interface to actually, you know, look for a group ... you can still queue your existing and fully formed 5-man for a specific instance or heroic and get a free port straight to the entrance!  For someone who (still) gets lost as often as I do, this is amazing.

And yes, I did finally manage to finish Halls of Reflection, with Annah and Keaton oh-so helpfully reminding me every time there was a quest pick-up or turn-in.  <3 you guys.

The Best Paladin on the Server

On Saturday evening, I had the rare honor of joining a ToC 10 PuG tanked by the Best Paladin on the Server.  He magnanimously agreed to save our run after the death knights who had initially signed on to tank dropped out after several admittedly embarrassing wipes on Northrend Beasts (that I'm 99.9% certain that they caused out of sheer ineptitude).

… oh, and Elam came too.  On his death knight tank, Grazeless, who — provincial bovine charm notwithstanding — was clearly outclassed by the Best Paladin on the Server. 

So, after posing outside the instance portal in his spit-polished ilevel 258 gear (and taking a few screen shots with envious lookers-on), the Best Paladin on the Server took one look at our ragtag crew — and laughed.  “I hope you have a DPS set, Grazeless,” he chortled.  “I can solo-tank this shit.”

(Note to self: Introduce the Best Paladin on the Server to Snottydin.  I think they’ll hit it off well.)

Grazeless hesitated, too awed by the opportunity to converse directly with the Best Paladin on the Server to formulate a timely response.  “I don’t have a DPS spec,” he stammered at length.  “But I do have a hunter spec.”

“Ah well.”  The Best Paladin on the Server shrugged his plate-encased shoulders, pausing ever so briefly to admire his reflection in the gleaming metal.  “Nevermind.  I’ll tank the first boss and teach you how to tank the rest of them.  It’s so easy, even you could do it.” 

Eager to be see the Best Paladin on the Server in action, our fearless leader hurried us all back into the Crusader’s Coliseum — much to the dismay of the gaggle of Blood Elf fangirls who had scattered throughout the Tournament Grounds, sighing and swooning and flinging their Battle-forged panties in the Best Paladin on the Server’s general direction.

Once we had zoned in, the Best Paladin on the Server favored the much less experienced Grazeless with a precious moment of his time and vastly superior wisdom.  “I suppose I’ll let you help with this after all.  Taunt after four stacks of Impale and pick up Acidmaw when he spawns.  He’s the one on the left.” 

Sensing that Grazeless was confused by this rather complicated instruction, the Best Paladin on the Server made an “L” with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and winked.   “The left is this one — see?”

Grazeless gulped, clutched his two-handed axe like a security blanket, and eventually nodded his understanding. 

The Best Paladin on the Server smiled beatifically, executed a perfect hair flip, and sauntered over to take his rightful place at the head of the raid. 

And … nothing happened.  We stood around staring at each other, mouths slightly agape as we shook our heads in bewilderment.  What was Tirion Fordring waiting for? 

“Ugh, just get on with it.”  The Best Paladin on the Server glared up at the stands.  “I’ll autograph your helm after I solo-tank this shit.”  Tirion Fordring blushed and forced himself to stop admiring the vision of paladiness before him long enough to send in Gormok the Impaler.

And because he is, after all, an Elam Alt®: Grazeless died.

The Best Paladin on the Server shrieked like a harried banshee.  “YO, HUNTER!” he howled over Varian Wrynn’s ever-obnoxious gloating.  (Somewhere in Storm Peaks, an avalanche started.)  “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO TANK ACIDMAW.  I CAN’T SOLO-TANK THIS SHIT ‘CUZ I HAVE TO KITE DREADSCALE THROUGH THE RANGED DPS WHILE OUTRANGING MY TOXIN’D HEALER AND ABSOLUTELY NOT BREAKING HER OUT OF PARALYSIS ‘CUZ THAT’S THE TOTALLY PRO WAY TO DO TOC.”

Not surprisingly, the hunter whimpered and feigned death.

Gormok: 1.

Hapless PuG: 0

As we made the dash of shame back into the instance, Grazeless summoned his courage like a ghoul and pulled the Best Paladin on the Server aside.  “Maybe you should tank Acidmaw,” he suggested.  “Your TPS is so much better than mine.  And I want to practice that whole kiting-through-the-DPS and outranging-my-healer and not-freeing-people-from-poison thing you have going on, because it’s really sexy and I hear Best Death Knight on the Server is still up for grabs.  So, can you help a Deathcow out?”

“I suppppppose,” the Best Paladin on the Server drawled, using a corner of Grazeless’s cloak to wipe the worm spit off of his breastplate.  “Just remember, no matter what those imbeciles over there” — he waved a hand towards the DPS, who by this time were huddled in shame around their fish feast — “would have you believe, the Worms absolutely do NOT drop aggro after a burrow.”

Grazeless nodded, savoring the advice, and trotted back to the herd. 

Round Two: Fight?

(To be continued.  Maybe.)

How I got screwed out of my ret spec.

So, um …

... for future reference: Wells Fargo has an 877 number that is exactly one digit off from a number that you REALLY shouldn't be calling at work. *hides*

Links!

I don't know why I've never thought to do a links-laden feature, like so many of my favorite blogs do on a weekly basis.  I always love reading them: not only is it a great way to find new blogs to follow, but it's also a thrill to see my name show up every now and then (less now than then, unfortunately, since I'm writing less these days on account of a new and far more demanding job /sadface).

A few of my favorite reads this week:

• The Renaissance Man of Children of Wrath looks at the Ghosts of Patches Past — including what has to be the best. glitch. ever.  I'm still giggling.
• Lume the Mad is calling it quits, at least as far as progression raiding is concerned.  His final thoughts on ToGC, and Hardcore Raiding in Wrath of the Lich King is one of the best critiques of the "new" endgame that I've read so far.
• Windsoar of Jaded Alt has some advice for those new or aspiring raiders who frequently find themselves asking "Where's My Raid Slot?"  I suspect this will become a sticky on many guild forums.
• Anea waxes poetic.  About a Nether Ray.  In General Chat.
• Finally, congratulations to my long-time commenter Asara on winning WoW Insider's scavenger hunt! 

On a related note, Surreality has a new blogger!  (... Or is that, a new blogger has Surreality?)  The commenter previously known as Lord of the Fries — @lordofthefries to the Twitterati — is now Tahas, Not Tatas.  I rather strongly suspect we have Elam to thank for that name.  Guess what he calls poor Tahas?  :p

I realize that I’m overreacting …

... but when WoW Insider linked to a new warlock blog called "Fel Fire," I actually felt betrayed.   That was my name when I started blogging, and one that I still identify with rather strongly.  Seeing someone else claim it stings.  A lot.

Guest Post: A Circle of Dee Pee Ess

Bob2 is a fury — soon to be furry (read: Tauren!) — warrior who has been a part of Surreality's core raid in one form or another for as long as we've had a core raid. 

... Of course, Bob's name isn't actually Bob.  The nickname originated with another fury warrior, who was dubbed "Bob" for reasons no one knows or remembers by a pair of brothers who raided with us back in our SSC/TK days (and have since rerolled Alliance, the traitors!  /shakesfist).  Bob the First eventually left the game to concentrate on Very Important Things™ — but before he did, bequeathed his raid spot to a real life friend: Bob2. 

Bob2 eventually brought several more friends into the guild, and is now the de facto ringleader of what Elam has termed "The Canadian Quattro" (who have been nice enough to invite my baby druid on many a Northrend heroic <3).

Bob2 has been clamoring for a DPS version of Miss Medicina's survey since I completed it a week or so ago.  When one finally appeared, courtesy of Death Goddess, he had it filled out before he had a place to post it. 

That's where I come in ...

*   *   *

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary DPS?

Pusciferr (soon to be changed), Undead (also soon to be changed) dual-spec PVE raid fury warrior/PVE raid fury warrior (once again possibly soon to be changed to PVE raid fury/PVP arms, assuming I can figure out how to mix my two fury builds without sacrificing anything worthwhile).

What is your primary DPSing environment? (i.e. raids, PvP, 5 mans)

Primary DPSing environment would definitely be raids, atm heroic and normal ToC 25, Onyxia, VoA, and occasionally Uld.  I have also been helping gear up some friends by running an ungodly amount of heroic dungeons.

What is your favorite DPS spell/ability for your class and why?

Whirlwind, hands down.  Sure it has a tendency to rip aggro on non-primary kill targets off the add tank and get me killed within the first five seconds of trash pulls (yes, yes, I know I could hold off a bit at first and avoid this death chance, but I like to think that I keep my tanks and healers on their toes =P).  [Elle: It does!]   But besides its likelihood of getting me killed, its damage is amazing and any fight where I end up heads and tails over the top on the meters is because of this ability.

What DPS spell do you use least for your class and why?

Well I don't Mortal Strike much, but that is because as a certain enhancement shaman friend of mine can tell you, I am an utter newb when it comes to PvP.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your DPS class and why?

Well, fury isn't really the best tree for helping out the rest of the raid.  Yes, I do have a few tricks like shouting (when we don't have more pallys than you can shake a stick at) and a 5% crit bonus for everyone (when our feral druid tank isn't around), so our strength definitely doesn't lie in our buffs to others. I would say the greatest strength of fury warriors in a raid situation is their ability to put out very good dmg consistently, and be able to ramp up for burst damage pretty often during fights when it is called for, since some of our cooldowns are on pretty short timers.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your DPS class and why?

Well besides the aforementioned lack of non-overlapping group buffs, one of the things I find to be the biggest drawback to fury is that death + battle rez is the only form of aggro dump that we have.  Besides switching to auto-attack I have no way to reduce my threat when I am getting too high, and on the occasion when I have to do that, it REALLY sucks just sitting there and watching my undead lazily swing twice every 3 seconds while all my abilities are off cooldown asking me why I am not unleashing their power.

One more weakness for us is our lack of large scale AOE, sure we SHINE when the group of enemies is around 3-4, but each one past that and we start getting vastly outplayed by rogues, druids, mages, locks, shaman, and all those classes with AOE spells that don't limit the number of targets that you can hit.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best DPS assignment for you?

I have a few good assignments for me.  Bursting comes pretty natural for fury warriors so being assigned to burst targets is always good.  Damaging small groups of adds is also great; as I said earlier the magic number of targets for us is 3-4 to get the best from our cleaves and whirlwinds, so any situation with this number of targets and I'm your man, well, err corpse (or soon to be cow) anyway.

Interrupting is another good role for me since it can be added during my regular DPS rotation pretty easily without throwing much off.  I also don't need to worry about joint spell/hit caps like some interrupters do so my interupts are garrenteed to hit.

What DPS class do you enjoy DPSing with most and why?

Probably a certain enhancement shaman mentioned above because his melee buffs are pretty nice, and a well placed bloodlust is awesome.  Also he doesn't roll on my 2-handed weapons.

What DPS class do you enjoy DPSing with least and why?

I can't really think of a DPS class that annoys me to play with.  Most of the time we can find complements with any combination.  Sure other DPS warriors, DK's and ret pallys all end up stealing my precious loot but DPS plate is pretty common so it doesn't really bother me much.

What is your worst habit as a DPS?

Well one is definitely the aforementioned tendency to pull aggro and die within the first 5 seconds of a fight by an unlucky series of crits and my own overzealousness.  I can also get tunnel visioned and forget to get out of the bad, but that normally only happens when I am specifically trying to perform a task (like switching focus to DPS on adds or making sure a particular spell gets interrupted).  Under normal DPS conditions I can normally stay out of the bad stuff.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while DPSing?

One of my small pet peeves about DPSing in a group environment is when casters AOE of groups of critters.  It's not that I am warm and fuzzy and want all the little critters to go on with their mundane existence, it is that THOSE ARE MY RAGE POTIONS SO LEAVE THEM ALONE!

I would have to say that my biggest pet peeve while DPSing is when things are tanked to closely to CC'ed mobs.  Whirlwind is a VERY important part of my single target DPS rotation and its radius is pretty large.  I know positioning some mobs can be frustrating, but if you tank it too close to the CC'ed mobs don't cry at me about breaking CC and not being able to re'CC them due to a bleed effect.  (I do for the most part hold off on whirlwinds if I am in close proximity to CC, but it still bugs me.)

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other DPS?

I find warriors pretty well balanced.  At the moment I am just returning from two months off so my gear is still behind everyone else's — leaving me at the low end of the meters — but before I went on hiatus I could consistently get top 5 unless the fight was heavily favorable to casters, so no complaints on balance from this warrior.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a DPS?

Recount should be used as a tool, but reading too much into it can cause problems.  There are lots of ways almost any class can pad the meters which will not actually help the raid.  In fact, in many cases if you are doing things the way you are supposed to your DPS on the meters will actually drop.  So it's useful, but don't take it as the be all, end all.

I also use SlamAlert, a macro which tells me when my instant slam procs because trying to look for that piece of text in the stream of scrolling text lines feels like reading one of those Where's Waldo books.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

About my class as a whole the misconception I find is that warriors should have a tanking set/spec.  Excuse me, but I tried warrior tanking and it is not my cup of tea.  While I do have a tanking set in my bank, it is composed of a mis-matched series of pieces ranging from heroic gear to tier 8.5 pieces.  My guild knows better now, and I think they now all view me as a rogue in plate, which in my mind is a lot better then being a tank without a shield.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new DPSers of your class to learn?

New DPSers' main problem is staying alive.  Get out of the bad because low but still alive DPS, is better then a high DPS character laying down in an expanding pool of their own blood.  There are other small tricks of the trade to learn but knowing the fights enough to stay alive is definitely the biggest hurdle in warrior DPSing.

What DPS class do you feel you understand least?

At the lvl 80 level of playing I know Fury warriors and that is about it. I have some understanding of rogueing, and know a little about huntering.  Everyone else is a pretty big mystery.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in DPS?

Omen, Recount, SlamAlert, Deadly Boss Mods.  I macro demo shout in a cast sequence with bloodrage so I remember to recast it every 40 seconds.  I also use a macro as part of my DPS rotation.  Oh and my favorite macro...

/tar Ignus
/lick
/lick
/lick

I find doing this increases raid success as a whole, and strongly encourage all my guildmates to make this macro and use it whenever you can before the boss is pulled, or when just sitting in Dal (he can usually be found hanging out near the Horde bank). =P

(Guild joke for all who are confused.)

[Your class's preferred basic stat] over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?

First and foremost, get hit capped, it is very very very very VERY important.  Then STR is your BEST friend.  Armor pen is also pretty damn sweet.

Well thanks for giving me your attention everybody, and thanks to Elleiras for letting me guest post on her blog.

—Bob2

P.S.  Bob tags Elam. 

Immersion.

Dear Blizzard,

I am deeply disturbed by the lack of immersion in the World of Warcraft.  Although some subscribers will contend that immersion was "broken" by the implementation of an RMT store that sells artfully assembled (but still ultimately pointless) pixels, my complaint is that it never truly existed in the first place.

Like most of the socially-challenged basement dwellers who make up the majority of your customer base, I view Azeroth as an escape from reality and have come to view these constant intrusions as nothing short of abhorrent.  For $15 a month, the very least you could do is provide me with a fantasy world I can believe in!

In the spirit of constructive criticism, I have compiled the following list of suggestions to restore immersion to Azeroth:

1.  Remove all global chat channels from the game, including General Chat, Trade Chat, Looking For Group, Local Defense, World Defense and especially Barrens.  Not only are chat channels disruptive in and of themselves (when was the last time you chatted with random strangers in [1. Wal-Mart General] while stocking up on Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew?), but they also invite other players to intrude upon my gaming experience.

... On second thought, remove all chat channels, period.  This includes /party and /guild, as communication should happen via emotes or in /say, with /whispers permissable only between characters who are within arms length of each other.

2.  With the exception of a warlock's Dreadsteed (which is, of course, summoned from the Nether), mounts should be stabled when not in use.  Characters should only be able to mount in friendly or neutral towns after talking to an allied stable master.  If for some reason a character is dismounted in combat, then her mount should simply run away.

3.  PvP flags and sanctuary zones make no logical sense and should be removed from the game.  Keep things simple and eliminate Normal servers altogether.

4.  Speaking of logical sense...  Do you really expect me to believe that my shaman can put a sword in her backpack but can't hold it in her hand?  Or that my hunter had to wait until her 40th season to learn how to put on a new pair of pants?  Armor and weapons restrictions are arbitrary and nonsensical.  Do away with them.

5.  Make death permanent.

6.  Give all of the raptors in Arathi Highlands two eyes or a debuff called Depth Perception that causes them to periodically walk into walls.

7.  Raids should have a lifetime rather than weekly lockout.  Once a guild has defeated Yogg-Saron, he should be well and truly defeated.  If he didn't drop the loot you wanted — oh well.  Disappointment is part of immersion, too. 

8.  Please revisit all lower level loot tables.  If I rifle through a gnomish corpse, then I expect to find a few coins, some [Pocket Lint], perhaps a [Trinket of Engineering Fail].  But a green-quality staff three times the gnome's height?  I don't think so.  (And I don't even want to think about where that devilsaur hid a plate helm...)

9.  Provide an alternate path of progression.  My Foresaken mage is a sweet little thing who devotes her time to casting Arcane Intellect on dumb warriors and conjuring pastries for orphans.  The idea of slaughtering dozens of innocent farmers in Hillsbrad breaks her Undead heart!  Please consider providing an alternate path of progression, preferably one oriented around altruistic (rather than genocidal) deeds.

10.  In their current form, level 1 critters are little more than eye candy.  The cockroaches in Undercity should be level 83 elites with 5,000,000,000,000 HP.  Each. 

Cincinnati was just the beginning.

These are just a few preliminary suggestions.  Once you have these worked out, I would be happy to provide more!  In fact, you might as well add me to your payroll now and get it over with.

Just don't make me leave the basement.

Sincerely,

Elle