Anticipation

The title of this post is either a reference to Carly Simon or Rocky Horror, I can't decide which.

So more and more information is coming out about Patch 3.3 and each tidbit is making me more and more excited for various personal reasons. I'll cover some of the highlights, but first, I wanted to give a brief update on what I've been doing in game lately.

My rogue continues to be my favorite class to play, but lately the guild has been struggling with an overflow of raid-viable players and all the standard pitfalls that such a bloat encompasses. Currently the only scheduled raid is the weekend ToC-25, and now that we've got a large number of players of varying skill, the GLs have been trying to sort through the ever-growing list of bench-warmers to figure out where everybody stands, both in terms of gear and skill. What this means to me is that I've been sitting out a lot of fights. I don't mind this so much, as I understand what's happening, but it's left me with some time to kill.

So I've allowed my altaholism to kick in, but with a more focused approach - I asked the question, what kind of classes does the guild need? The answer came back, and the challenge was issued - make a Demo Lock.

For those of you who don't know, currently the Demonology Warlock fills the role of taking a back seat in personal DPS in order to provide Demonic Pact - a raid buff that, when packing enough crit to have a high uptime, and enough spellpower, will override a shaman's Totem of Wrath. I've always been interested in taking the utility rolls. When this was brought up, I was warned that my DPS would be pretty abysmal to everybody else, but my response is - I have a rogue. I'm good on the high DPS satisfaction.

And from the looks of things, changes to Molten Core, Decimation and Demonic Pact itself should see my DPS looking at least a little more competitive - I mean, I don't want to just be a walking totem, now.

So I dusted off my old ex-Horde Warlock, freshly faction-changed and kitted out in the latest clothy heirlooms, and have been powerlevelling my way through Outlands with my friend on his rogue. Ironically, with him playing Subtlety spec, and me going with Demonology, we've both taken hits on our DPS for survivability. But it's nice to do all those group quests in Terrokar and Nagrand without any fear of death.

Meanwhile, we lost a tank, and as such, there's an opening of sorts for anybody willing to man up and don his shield and defense rating. I've been sitting on my warrior for some time now, boggling at being a member of a guild that actually has a tanking surplus. But now that the door's open, and I've learned that a number of our tanks are only doing it to help out at the expense of what they'd rather be doing, I'm seeing the opportunity to really focus fire my way into good enough gear to be competitive.

So now I'm looking at three alts that I'd like to get geared for ToC and ICC in a relatively short period of time. That's why I'm absolutely ecstatic about the new LFG and LFR tools coming out. Here's a breakdown of the highlights:

- Cross Server LFG means more players for whatever you want to run. Obviously Oculus is still going to be at the bottom of the list (One day I will get Ruby Void. One day...) but overall, increasing the population of potential PuGers means a better chance of running something RIGHT NOW, as well as better chances of getting a good group (or a bad one - but that will never change.)

- Random Dungeons will let you re-run the same Heroics. I always hated the heroic cap. Not the concept - I agree that it would be unfair to reward players who work from home or are on summer vacation or whatever the ability to farm heroics non-stop all day. But the fact that you were saved as soon as the first boss was down, only to then wipe repeatedly on the second or third and finally give up, and be prevented from running the dungeon again for the rest of the day. That bugged me. Now it is gone. If you're willing to throw caution to the wind and take a chance on random dungeons with truly random people, you won't be punished for a bad group. Also, if you want to be really psychotic about it, it means that you can farm more than the 50-some emblems a day, provided you have the stamina and a hefty supply of Mt. Dew.

- Emblems of Triumph for everyone. Some people are crying about the welfare epics and easy modes and whatnot, but as a gamer who has struggled to make WoW fit into his life and still feel some sense of accomplishment, the normalization of Emblems is a huge relief to me. Any frustrations I've had over either missing out on the weekend ToC runs due to RL commitments, or just being benched that week, are mostly about the emblems. We all want to go and get a chance to roll on gear that drops. But it's just a chance. You learn to lower your expectations. But not getting to go to ToC-25 means that's 15 emblems of triumph I don't get this week. And that stings. With EoTs being the currency for some of the best gear in the game now, knowing that I just lost a huge chunk of progress on them has been bitter to the taste. Now I have more control of my own advancement, and it makes me extremly optimistic for the future.

There's also a lot of talk about the Chill of the Throne mechanic. I won't get into it, this post is long enough as it is, but my summarized thoughts are that I understand and agree with Blizzard on why they're doing this, but the software engineer in me disapproves of the method. It's a hack. Their system didn't hold up to their balancing methods, so they hard-coded a fix on the bosses in ICC to work around it. It's not elegant. But it will work. So no biggie.

Also this paladin thing. Now I feel like I should roll a pally just to see what all the fuss is about, but I think I've got enough on my plate for now. Add to that the fact that I'm basically taking the next week off from WoW, and I'm going to be plenty busy with things once Patch 3.3 drops. And if it drops next week I will be sad, but ultimately happy.

When Numbers Attack

I think that for me, like most people, WoW is an outlet. I think that, more specifically, it's an outlet for my left brain more than my right. Sure, it's a magical world of fantasy and adventure, yada yada yada. But where I really seem to thrive, where the game really gets my blood pumping is in the numbers.



Hello, my name is Aidnan, and I'm a theorycrafter.



It goes beyond managing my DPS, though. I actually believe that thinking too hard about whether a piece with 31 haste rating is better than a piece with armor penetration is missing the point. Of course, I'm not in a progression guild, and don't have to worry about min-maxing my DPS. But still, that's not where the fun is for me. The fun is in figuring out the absolute best way to use my time.



It's about efficiency.



My laptop is filled with spreadsheets through the years highlighting what gear options are available to me and which ones are the best to go for. ShadowPanther has played a huge role in both inspiring my and saving me some time in this regard. But just looking at what gear is best in slot doesn't necessarilly help me. It's about what gear I can reasonably expect to get, and when.

Here's my current breakdown:

I'm fortunate enough to be in a guild now that raids pretty consistantly. There's enough overgeared toons that running ToC-25 will result in a full clear, as well as anything below it. Of course, when it comes to things like Ulduar or Naxx, there's an issue of "will we finish this". And hard modes don't seem to be on anybody's mind right now. But for the most part, the raids are there.

I, however, am not so fortunate enough to have all the time in the world. So a lot of the raid times aren't going to work for me. So I factor that into my considerations as well.

Given that, I consider the likelihood of getting gear from various sources.

Anything from Trial of the Grand Crusader's pretty much out right now. It's not being run regularly, and when it is, they're only taking the top-geared folks, which I am yet to be.

ToC-25 is a question of availability. Trophies are obviously going to be in high demand, so I have a 1-in-25 chance of getting them (maybe less, depending on which of the uber-toons is going), and then any gear that drops may or may not be spread out among the other toons. There's not very many other rogues in the guild right now, and almost no feral druids, but it can still come up. And obviously weapons, cloaks, amulets, rings and trinkets are going to be desired by a whole host of other classes.

ToC-10 seems to be pretty easy to get into, though, as there's a lot of people who want to run it (and can pull it off) and the scheduling is much more flexible. I was able to run it last night and got a nice shoulder upgrade, which will also save me some emblems. So that's more up my alley right now.

And then there's badge gear. The thing about it is, it's guaranteed. It's a 100% drop, and there's no competition.

This has led to the question of, with so much badge gear now available, what to spend my hard-earned emblems on first?

And thus I have developed the Golden Ratio (name change pending):

Theoretical DPS / Emblem Cost.

Or as I like to think of it, bang for my buck.

I'm using Aldriana's spreadsheet to calculate the theoretical improvement each piece of gear would give me if it were the next piece I were to obtain. Obviously, every time you get an upgrade, the value of other gear choices changes. So what was a downgrade at one point because it dropped your expertise may now be an upgrade because you're closer to the cap. So it requires constant monitoring as gear changes.

But by taking the difference between the DPS with the badge piece and my current theoretical DPS, and dividing it by the badge cost, I get a ratio that gives me the most valuable upgrade for the least amount of effort.

At least that's how I think of it. I may be way off, and should be focusing on whatever piece is the highest DPS upgrade, period, even if I need 75 Triumph badges or whatever. But given the availability constraints mentioned previously, I like to think that this is a much better use of my time. And for me, that's really what the game's all about.

The Grind

I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to WoW. Aidnan never saw level 60 before Burning Crusade came out, and didn't really set foot into Karazhan until a few months before Wrath came out - which I think was about a year ago, actually. I was all committed to being on the cutting edge of content (On the Cutting Edge of Content would make for a great news editorial column name, btw) but guild strife and the previously mentioned feeling of rogue hatred more or less stifled my desires to keep at it.

So it's fitting that I'm just now getting done with my heroic dungeon farming.

I'm not looking for gear at this point. I've done enough run-throughs on Naxx and OS that there's nothing of interest to me at the ilvl 200 range anymore. Now it's all about the emblems - which everyone still calls badges - and it's changed the game dramatically.

Everyone has PuG horror stories. My horror of pugging pretty much left me in the dust during BC - I wasn't willing to risk the pain of a bad group, and couldn't find a guild to help my behind-the-curve butt get caught up. I stuck it out in the early days of Wrath because I knew that the supply was a little richer - the good players were going to be running heroics as much as anybody else, though only for a short period of time, so I played the odds. But I can't even count the number of groups I had that left me pulling my hair out and/or cursing the 1-day reset timer on heroics, especially for the dailies. The whole experience left an awful taste in my mouth.

Things are different now, though. For one thing, my guild is much more willing to run heroics for the shits and giggles, which is awesome. But their focus is and should be on raids, which is fine. However, I still have a lot I can do on my own, and so I've been hitting up LFG much more. And it's been awesome.

The game has changed a lot with the advent of Conq badges dropping in all dungeons, as well as the Triumph badges from the daily - namely, everybody's overgeared for heroics. It doesn't really matter if they know what they're doing or not anymore. Even the most Fail DK DPS you can meet can pretty much faceroll their way to 2.5k DPS. Tanks hold threat just by standing and waving, and healers seem to have an unlimited supply of mana. As long as everyone has a basic idea of what they're doing, the heroics aren't nearly as challenging and potentially frustrating as they used to be.

I'm sure many people are lamenting the devaluation of skill in these situations. After all, if the abundance of epics leads people to gear up without ever having to learn to play, what incentive will they have? I've already seen this in my guild, where a handful of our top-geared players are under the mistaken assumption that good gear = good players. I'm sure it will bite my ass in the future, but for right now, it's making for some easy gear-ups on my part.

There is, also, a higher number of pro players in the heroic farming area. And this has led to the other element of my enjoyment lately. Between the fact that every person in the group is overgeared just by existence, and the presence of two or more experienced players, it's led to both a brisk and enjoyable series of dungeons, and more heroic achievements than I ever thought I'd see. Last night I had the fortune of receiving the following achievements:

- Volazj's Quick Demise
- Volunteer Work - although admittedly I had little to do with it as I brain farted right before an enraged Whirlwind. Ow.
- Heroic: Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom and subsequently...
- Northrend Dungeon Hero as well as
- Hadronox Denied, which I got to play a vital role in. Kick ass! I even got the achievement for 250 emblems.

So between all of that craziness, and finally picking up my T8 chest piece (the head piece is next), I'm totally enjoying the PuG scene. But I think the most satisfying aspect of it is that there's an endpoint. After farming enough conquest badges - a guarnateed drop - I will eventually not need to run these things anymore. That, to me, is probably the most digestible part of the whole experience.

Intro Post

This is my new blog to post about my World of Warcraft activities. The name of the blog is a reference to the Mutilate animation for rogues, which I've always thought was an expression of the rogue's desire to hug his or her enemies, conflicting with the refusal to drop the shiny stabby things they love so much.

My main toon is Aidnan, a dwarf Assassination rogue that I am currently gearing up through Trial of the Crusader . I have a ways to go, as I had previously retired the character during a time where I felt like everyone hated rogues on principle, and was never able to get into any groups. Fortunately I'm in a good guild now that values inclusiveness, so I'm getting to see a lot of content finally. Plus all that bias seems to have gone away now that rogues are in a better place, mechanics-wise.

My only other Level 80 toon is Kraellu, a draenei warrior who I levelled as Protection, and farmed heroics until I ran out of stuff to do outside of raiding. Unfortunately, most people are much more demanding of the gear that tanks wear than the DPS, and the guild I'm in already has way more overgeared tanks than we need, so I switched to Arms. But then it occurred to me that if I was just going to be gearing up for melee DPS, I might as well go back to my rogue who was better geared already. So Kraellu doesn't get a lot of action right now unless someone needs a tank for a heroic.

I have a few other alts that I'm working on right now, including a Balance druid in the 30s, and a soon-to-be Protection paladin in his teens, that I plan to level cap at 60. But my main focus is playing my rogue, with the Assassination spec, which I think is the most fun out of the three possibilities, with the class that I enjoy the most. For now, anyway.

Rogues are in a good place these days, as evidenced by the patch notes for Patch 3.3 - that is to say, there's almost nothing being done with Rogues, which everyone pretty much agrees means Blizzard is happy with them for the moment. I do wish there was a bit more balance between high DPS and survivability - if Subtlety was a viable raid DPS spec, I would definitely at least dual spec to it for awesome talents like Cheat Death and Enveloping Shadows. I get tired of ending up on the floor on any fight that has a Whirlwind mechanic. But at the same rate, it's nice to feel like there's a solid design to the class, and know that if you work your rotation right - which isn't nearly as hard as it used to be - and have the right gear, you'll see the results you expect.

One thing that's come up is that I'm something of a rare breed for choosing my spec, at least in my guild, as most rogues don't have the patience to farm daggers exclusively. I can understand that, and I'll offspec roll on non-dagger weapons when I see them. But really my commitment to Mut spec comes from two sources:
1) All evidence shows that my DPS is higher with Assassination
2) I really, really hate Combat.

I played the cookie cutter game in Burning Crusade, speccing Combat like every other PVE rogue in existence to get the same numbers they were. While the consistency was gratifying, and there was certainly a large community of people to get feedback from, I found the playstyle to be incredibly boring. Maybe I'm just a fan of seeing big numbers on my screen, but the machine-gun approach of rapid fire attacks, vs. the GIANT EXPLOSIONS OF POISON DAMAGE that we get with Mutilate, didn't hold up. Assassination clicked with me the minute I respec'd after 3.0.2 came out, and I've never really wanted to go back. If the spreadsheets ever indicate that my current gear would result in higher DPS with Combat than Mut, I'll think about it. But until then, I'm loving my ear-stabbing ways.