... And yet when we learned that the next legendary would be a healing mace, there was never any doubt in my mind as to who should receive it.  There were no alternatives to consider; no cosmic scales to tinker with until they tipped perfectly even. 

For once, my inner October was perfectly and confidently decisive.  

Although Surreality has a strong healing core and six excellent healers — each worthy of the honor for vastly different reasons — only one of them has been with the guild from the very beginning: from that first tentative foray into Karazhan, when he agreed to heal our weeknight raid in spite of a living a full hour ahead of server time and and four hours ahead of the rest of his team.  (He cat-napped after work and set his alarm for 2 AM in order to honor that commitment, but honor it he did!)

For over two years, he has been a constant presence in and invaluable asset to the guild: as an officer, as our healing lead, and as a friend. 

This is, after all, the man who operates on the "Happiness Principle" and will pass upgrades or vanity items to anyone he thinks will derive more happiness from them than he will. 

This is also the man who volunteers to heal instances and raids for the guild's entire host of alts, long after they've ceased to be of any personal value to him — and then sits out those he does need simply so others can experience them.  (And unlike me, he doesn't mope about it for a week afterwards.  >.>)

He herds cats. 

He accompanies our raid leader into cleared instance ID's to fine-tune strategy and positioning. 

He donates hours of his time herbing and fishing to keep the guild bank stocked with flasks and potions for those long progression nights. 

He has spent many a night consoling me through guild drama, boy drama, family drama and every other kind of drama: offering support and a fresh perspective — and occasionally playing Devil's Advocate — when they are most needed.

I know they're only pixels, Annah, but they carry the respect and gratitude of the guild with them.  Congratulations on Val'anyr.  No one deserves it more.

Legendary. is a post from: Altadin

Anyway, Don Carlos' hat is an absolute must-have for any self-respecting shaman — not only because it's pretty damn sexy in its own right, but because the "incorporeal coyote spirit" summoned by its on-use effect looks exactly like our Ghost Wolf form.  I missed the zeppelin the first time it sailed, because Lil started as a lowly alt; by the time she was leveled to 70 and attuned to the Caverns of Time, all of my friends had already farmed Old Hillsbrad dry and were pretty burnt out on it.

Fortunately, it's relatively easy to solo at level 80.

Here's how I did it (and believe me, if I can do it, anyone can!):

1.  Spec Enhancement.  I don't think this is necessary, per se, but it's fun.  After a long week of healbotting friendly things and boring unfriendly things to death, a girl has to get her Windfury on.

2.  Port to Orgrimmar.

3.  Remember that there's a portal directly to the Caverns to Time in the Dalaran's Violet Citadel.

4.  /sigh.

5.  Astral Recall to Dalaran.

6.  Wonder if anyone's started a QQ thread about Shamans being cheated in 3.1 by a 30 minute Hearthstone cooldown ...

7.  Be amazed to find that cooler heads do occasionally prevail!

(What were we doing again?  Oh, right...)

8.  Port to the Caverns of Time.

9.  Run a couple of laps around the central cavern, trying to remember which instance is Old Hillsbrad.  (For the record, it's the one that looks like an Alliance outpost, but not actually an Alliance town.  If there's a lot of buildings, its Old Stratholme.  If there are only a few buildings, it's Durnholde.  Trees and swampy things mean you're on your way to Mount Hyjal or Black Morass.)

10.  Old Hillsbrad is an outdoor instance, so don't forget to mount up or shift into Ghost Wolf form.  I recommend Ghost Wolf.  You're doing this for fun!, after all, and nothing says fun! more than romping around naked while scratching yourself and howling.  (Just ask the man in your life.)

11.  NO!  Don't take the dragon!  He's all gung-ho to rescue some hapless orcs, or something.  Save that for some sightseeing Children of Wrath; you're on a mission, here.

12.  Run up the road.  No, the other up!  I mean down.  I mean— ...

Why the hell are you asking me for directions?  Did you miss the post in which I confessed to getting lost in the Dalaran bank?  Just ... run around, howling and scratching, until you stumble across Don Carlos and his faithful Coyote Spirit.  That's what I did, and it didn't take long.

13.  Scamper ahead of the dashing don, and drop some totems.  I went with Windfury, Mana Stream, Earth Elemental and Magma Totem.

13.  CHAIN LIGHTNING!

14.  ... Remember belatedly — and vaguely, from doing this on your level 70 'lock — that Don Carlos is ranged, so you while you definitely succeeded in making him angry, he's still dancing out of range, shooting you with arrows, and (insult to injury!) his pet puppy is chewing on your furry Tauren tail ass.  (Almost forgot; Old Hillsbrad makes you human.  /shudder)

15.  Panic.

16.  Heal yourself.  (Ah, familiar ground!  Flash of Lesser Healing Light works well here, because you will be getting pushback.  Just don't do what I did, and waste precious seconds troubleshooting your Riptide keybind.  You specced out of it, dummy.)

17.  Run up to him, taking the long way because (damn it!) there's a fence in the way ...

18.  Push some buttons.  If they include anything that procs Windfury, you win!  If they don't, heal yourself and try again.

(Okay, okay.  I'll try to be helpful.  "Some buttons" actually means Stormstrike, Earth Shock and Lava Lash, in that order.  Every time Maelstrom Weapon stacks to five, use Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt for DPS or Healing Wave for a clutch self-heal.  Imbue your main-hand weapon with Windfury on your off-hand with Flametongue.  Also, due to some bizarre math thing I don't quite understand, the Torch of Holy Fire is currently the best enhancement main-hand in the game ... so if you're fortunate enough to have one, don't bother equipping that level 75 Northrend blue that you've been carrying around in your off-spec set.  Just use the pretty healing mace, and you're g2g.)

19.  Repeat step 18 until Don Carlos dies.  Then do it again to his puppy (which doesn't despawn, for some reason).

20.  /cheer! — and pose for the camera, of course!

Soloing Don Carlos as an Enhancement Shaman is a post from: Altadin

... but awarding Angry Dread to an undergeared rogue on his very first Naxx-25 — when I've been scrambling to put together an enhancement set before 3.1, and still have Crimson Cranium Crusher for a Main Hand — may have broken my heart a little bit tonight.  I lost Crimson Steel to him last week too, in that disaster of an alt OS10 PuG.

QQ.

I'm not ususally one to /pout about loot … is a post from: Altadin

My first impulse was to exclaim "Never!" in my best Scarlet O'Hara voice, while clutching at my heart with one hand and fluttering around wildly with the other.  Then I remembered that I'm Undead, with half-rotted fingertips that are likely to fall off if I attempt that bit of girly frivoloty ... so, nevermind.

For the record, Drotara isn't asking "Why would you master loot that spirit trinket to your mage (over the PuG resto druid who could actually use it)?" or even "Is it ever appropriate to Need-and-run?"  No, Drotara is more interested in the ethics of passing another player over for a piece of loot — especially if she actually won the roll — if you don't feel that she "deserves" it.  Maybe she died 3% into the fight and didn't contribute at all.  Maybe her performance was simply subpar.  Or maybe you don't agree that she needs an item because it isn't optimal for her class or role.

What really made me stop and consider the question was a story Drotara shared about another player's mother, who participated in a Vault PuG and actually won the roll for Valorous gloves — only to watch them go to another Death Knight because the raid leader decided she "sucked."

My Mom plays a Death Knight, too.  The last time I checked, she was completely decked out in spellpower plate because it looked cuter on her Blood Elf than DPS gear, and had the added benefit of "making her spells pwn more."  (Really.)

If my Mom were brave enough to PuG into a Vault run — which she isn't; she's listened in on enough of my siblings' raids to be absolutely terrified of opening herself up to that kind of criticism — I suspect she'd come somewhere below the tanks and above an Affliction 'lock her Baby Blizzard Bear on DPS.  She'd try her best, and possibly even drive herself to a panic attack in the process ... but the damage meters would not be kind, and I can't imagine that the typical Black Dragonflight PuG would be either.  (Sometimes, I think my server prides itself on its collective cruelty.)

What if I were the raid leader?  How would I handle the situation?

As a guild leader, my reputation is extremely important to me — so on the rare occasions that I organize trade channel PuG's, I am very careful to (1) make the loot rules clear before the first pull and (2) follow them to the letter.  If this means rewarding the Death Knight who can't DPS her way out of a netherweave bag, so be it.

When I'm handling loot in guild runs or even partial PuG's, I do tend to be a little more subjective.  In these cases, the letter of the law actually becomes secondary to its spirit.

I'm thinking specifically of an incident that occurred in a 3/4 guild, 1/4 PuG run of Serpentshrine Cavern.  SSC was officially considered farm content, so we were using a simple "Need for main-spec/Greed for off-spec/Pass otherwise" rule to handle loot (with a few pre-determined exceptions, such as the Earring of Soulful Meditation and Tsunami Talisman — our primary reasons for hosting the PuG in the first place!)

We were muddling through with less than a full raid group, including a PuG tank who remains to this day the single-worst prot paladin I have ever met.  "Healsforhugs" absolutely could not pick up his adds on Hydross; our feral druid ended up tanking all four, while Hugs ran around dropping Consecrates around the perimeter of the raid for ... no discernable reason.

Still, the rest of us overgeared the content, and were able to brute-strength our way through it fairly easily.  Hugs picked up a couple of off-spec drops uncontested, including the warrior-tanking mace off of Lurker.  (We really couldn't figure out why he wanted it, but no one else did, so ... whatever. /shrug)

We eventually made it to Leotheras, who dropped a Champion token (and some other things I can't remember, but definitely not a Tsunami Talisman).  Healsforhugs asked to /roll.  So did our Holy Paladin, who already had healing gloves but was looking to build a protection set in preparation for Mount Hyjal. 

At that point, Hugs was in the raid simply because I didn't have the heart to kick him.  His actual contribution was negligible — perhaps even negative, since he had been directly responsible for numerous trash deaths, and we had already decided to call the raid after Leo since there was no possible way he could tank Tidewalker's adds or anything in the Karathress fight.

Meanwhile, it was in the guild's best interests for the Holy Paladin to have an up-to-date prot set, since our pally tank was teaching a summer course and often missed raids, which occasionally left us without a viable tank for Hyjal trash.

I explained to Healsforhugs in whispers that even though the other paladin was healing at the moment, prot would be his main spec in guild raids so I was giving them equal priority.  The /roll alone would determine the winner.

The Holy Paladin won the roll, and I looted the tier token to him.

Healsforhugs threw an absolute fit.  He immediately dropped the raid, hearthed to Shattrath and started denounce us in /say us as "ninjas" and "robers" ... which, come to think of it, led to this rather comical moment:

[Healsforhugs]: Don't join Elleiras's guild!  Ninjas!  They just robed me!!
[Random Player #1]: You mean ... they forced you into a robe?
[Random Player #2]: OMG, I would totally join a guild for a free robe! Where do I sign up?!

... I really shouldn't make fun of poor Healsforhugs, especially since — technically — he was right.  I did break my own loot rules when I accepted the Holy Paladin's off-spec roll as if it were main-spec.

Was it justified?  I think so.  Healsforhugs was worse than useless, had already received several items and actually lost the roll to the Holy Paladin.

Did the guild's reputation suffer as a result?  Not at all.  Healsforhugs made a fool of himself in Shattrath and I actually received a /w that night from the leader of a guild he had recently applied to, thanking me for exposing him as a loser and a creep ... which I didn't quite get, since the extent of my public response to his theatrics was a simple "/say You lost the roll to another paladin; I'm very sorry that upset you."

OMG, ninja! is a post from: Altadin

We were farming Mount Hyjal (in the vain hopes that Kaz'rogal would finally have a heart) with a mismatched assortment of over-geared mains, undergeared alts and some non-raiding friends and family.  The guild bank was overflowing with Void Crystals; we certainly didn't need any more, even to sell.  Our rogues were as geared as you can get without farming Sunwell or seeing Warglaives drop (which, alas, we never did).  No one wanted the lonely little dagger. 

Except for our Holy Priest. 

So I gave it to him, free of charge (i.e., GP).

He ran around stabbing things for a trash wave or two, then went back to healing, and we all had a good laugh about it over Vent.

I share this story to prove a point: I'm not a tyrant when it comes to loot.  We have rules, and I follow them closely because I believe that consistency is important — but I'd still rather see something go to someone who will get some use out of it (and if not actual use, then at least 30 seconds of enjoyment) than to the guild bank as a shard.  Granted, this is less true now than it was at the end of the Burning Crusade: enchanting mats are valuable again, and we're replacing gear quickly enough that there never seem to be enough to go around.  But, in general, a situational upgrade or sidegrade or even a few minutes levity in a tense situation is more valuable to the guild than an Abyss Crystal.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a disconnect between this philosophy (which my guildmembers support overwhelmingly in 10-man's, where loot is /random'd and therefore — for all intents and purposes — "free") and the actual bids that come in after a 25-man boss kill.  In Heroic raids, where all loot has a cost (GP), players are much more likely to pass on gear, often skipping the smaller upgrades in order to preserve their priority (PR) for more significant ones. 

This is especially true now that we're starting to see some of our more active members "cap out" in terms of gear.  Since the upgrades aren't as plentiful for them, they aren't receiving GP and are sitting at the top of the PR list week after week.  Decay chips away at their respective leads, bit by bit — but as long as they continue raiding, they will still be first up for those last elusive drops that everyone needs.

As far as the system is concerned, this is fair.  The Resto Shaman who hasn't taken loot from the last three raids should receive a highly coveted mace over the Shadow Priest who has upgraded several pieces of gear in the same timeframe. 

... But what if the Resto Shaman has refused loot not because she's capped out, but because she's protecting her PR and has passed on multiple upgrades in the process?  This is EPGP's equivalent of DKP hoarding.  By passing on upgrades that could boost her spellpower, intellect, mp5, etc., to the benefit the entire raid, the Shaman is essentially letting those who are willing to take the PR hit carry her through content.

I recently had a Mage attempt to bid off-spec for a tier token, on the grounds that since no one else wanted it, he shouldn't have to pay full price for something that would be sharded otherwise.  The tier piece would have been a nice upgrade, but since the Mage refused to sacrifice the top spot on the PR list, he passed the token to a Feral Druid, who picked it up at 10% GP for his off-spec Balance set (which I can tell you right now will never see use).

If I was willing to give a melee dagger to a Holy Priest for free when there was no competition for it, why wouldn't I give a tier token to a Mage at off-spec cost when there was no other main-spec interest?

Because if I did, the next time something dropped that the Mage could bid on, he would have had an unfair advantage (in terms of PR) over someone who received his or her tier token for full GP.  Giving the Mage the token for a discounted cost wouldn't have hurt anyone or anything at that particular moment, but it would have affected everyone attempting to bid against him on subsequent drops.

This has been a surprisingly difficult concept to explain, and it still isn't unusual for me to receive an "I'll take it for off-spec ..." /tell from a pure DPS class when I call for bids.  Case in point: in last week's Naxx 25 run, three of our four Hunters attempted to bid "off-spec" for the same item — and each hunter was specced into a different tree!  Now, I don't claim to be an expert on hunter gear (that's what you have Pike and BRK for), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if it isn't main-spec for the Beast Master, then it should be main-spec for either the Marksman or the Survivalist.  If not, it's probably not a hunter item in the first place. 

(Yes, I know.  Everything is a Hunter item.  Just like everything is a Druid item.  Including the staff I lost to a Feral Druid in Wailing Caverns because it had stamina in addition to spellpower, and was therefore suitable for tanking.

... what?  Some grudges were built to last!)

Of course, I realize that some pieces are better for some specs than others.  While a Beast Master would most likely pass on Haste, a Survivalist would lap it up (to the point.  I think there's a cap, but at all of level 68 Falafel Fahalle hasn't seen it it yet.)  It isn't a matter of "Is it better for Survival?", because we know that it is.  It's a matter of "Should the BM Hunter be able to take a Haste-laden upgrade for nominal GP, and still win the crossbow that all three hunters want off the next boss because his PR hasn't been significantly impacted?"

Again, my answer has always been no. 

This is why, as a general rule, we don't allow pure DPS classes (hunters, mages, warlocks and rogues) to bid for off-spec gear.  I've made exceptions in the past (back in TBC, when every raiding Rogue was Combat Swords, maces frequently went to off-spec bids), but for the most part, it's full price or shard.

This makes sense to me for several reasons.  First and foremost, it keeps things simple.  Unlike most hybrids, who need completely different stats for the different roles they are able to fulfill, pure DPS classes want the same basic stats across all possible specs.  Some stats (especially secondary stats like hit, crit and haste) may be valued more highly for some specs than others, but a Hunter always wants agility and a Mage always wants spellpower.

As a Warlock, I always want stamina, intellect and spirit.  I consider Affliction my main spec for raid purposes and, as Affliction, value spellpower more highly than crit or haste.  But if I bid on an item that sacrifices a small amount of spellpower for crit or haste, I still incur main-spec cost — even though the item is a sidegrade for Affliction and an upgrade for Destruction, my off-spec.

My point is that spellpower plate is obviously off-spec for a tanking Paladin, spell hit cloth is obviously off-spec for a healing Priest, and attack power mail is obviously off-spec for an Elemental Shaman.  I would have no problem awarding any of these items to off-specs for 10% of actual GP, especially if the alternative is a DE.  But for pure DPS classes, where the differences between main-spec and off-spec itemization are less clear (and often open to debate), I keep things simple by enforcing my "main-spec or not at all" policy.

In the interests of compromise, there has been some discussion in officer chat about the possibility creating an intermediate level of bidding — something along the lines of a "Greed 50%", in which raiders could bid on those sidegrades or nominal/situational upgrades at 50% of GP value.  Greed bids would have lower priority than main-spec bids (100% GP) but a higher priority than off-spec bids (10%).  I know of a couple of guilds that do this, and it seems like a workable solution ... but it would also undermine the reason we went to a fixed-cost system in the first place, which was to eliminate the need for guildmembers to bid against each other rather than for a particular item.

Rather than amend our rules, we've attempted to educate our members about two of the major disadvantages to hoarding:

First, EP and GP decay by 10% every week.  This means that even if you view GP as a penalty, it's one that diminishes over time.  When Kel'thuzad finally gets around to dropping The Turning Tide, that tier token you took weeks or months ago may very well have decayed to insignificance.  A Green Macaw in the hand is worth two Hyacinth Macaws in the bush, as they say.

Second, hoarding undermines the system.  If everyone hoards, then no one receives gear, raid DPS/tanking/healing doesn't improve, and bosses don't die (except in "easymode" WotLK — but that won't be the case forever!).  On the other hand, if everyone bids on all of the upgrades available to them, PR becomes much more fluid, and no one has to worry that the item they took today will cost them the drop they really want three weeks from now.  The system works best when no one attempts to undermine or outsmart it.

Loot Drama: When is main spec not main spec? is a post from: Altadin