Void Reaver has Down's Syndrome

Get it? Oh, I'm such a hysterical douche bag. Gucchi, don'tchaknow.

So, yeah. Anathema downed Void Reaver Thursday night. My jello sex buddy Sequel snagged some Tier 5 shoulders, and is hot and ready for some Tier 5 pants. Or, you know, something else Tier 5.
For those not in the know, the 2 piece set bonus from Mage Tier 5 gear is called "Cheating". It increases the damage dealt by Arcane Blast by 20%. For an arcane mage, this means... wait for it... a 20% increase in damage dealt.

Ok, ok, I exaggerate. But lemme put it this way. For an arcane mage, this set bonus is similar to:

For Druids: Increases stamina, spell damage, and healing done by an amount equal to the number of times people made fun of feral druids when the level cap was 60.
For Hunters: Increases the chance your Arcane shot will instantly kill your target by 10%
For Paladins: Gives you a 30% chance after saying the F word to become immune to all types of damage as long as you can continue saying the F word.
For Priests: Mana pool is changed to the infinity symbol.
Rogue: Gives a 30% chance for you to deal forty thousand damage to all targets within 100 yards whenever you smile maliciously. This damage causes no threat.
Shaman: All heals and damaging attacks automatically increase themselves to be the highest in the raid group.
Warlock: Curse of Agony stacks, doesn't cause threat, and no longer triggers the GCD.
Warriors: Stamina increased by fifty five thousand percent, and Mortal Strike now one-shots whatever is targeted, whether or not the ability is actually used.

So you see how awesome that set bonus is.

Anyways, I have to say that being there, being a member of the raid that took down Void Reaver, for the first time for this guild, is pretty damn sweet. I mean, sheesh, how many times to you get to be there for a guild's first kill? Of a Tier 5 boss?
Sure, its Loot Reaver, but c'mon! This troll hasn't even seen the inside of Karazhan yet.


In other news, the Blog is going to get a facelift, me thinks.

Going to add an official blog roll or something, maybe switch over all the linky type stuff onto the right hand side.
Some colors getting changed, maybe an entire new template. And *gasp* maybe even my OWN somewhat customized template!

And the World of Magecraft's are going to be revamped, and are going to have some additional stuff added to them. Maybe even some real theorycrafting and math added.
And of course, far more pointful. Stay tuned!

$15 A Month

It comes with raiding guilds. It just does.
It's called drama.
Where people freak out, yell things on Vent, and TYPE THINGS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

There is no avoiding it.

Anathema downed Lurker last night. Again. It took several tries before it went well, and on the second last attempt there were some pretty big freakouts.
A couple people flipped about people not getting their asses in gear, blah blah blah, and just generally getting mad at other people in the raid for not holding up their end.
Then there was the following response:
"GUYS ITS JUST A GAME"

This is a typical response to many of the people who complain about people not doing their job.

It is just a game. It is meant to be played. Have fun, enjoy what you're doing, don't flip out because a mage forgot to polymorph so and so, or a rogue pressed the Envenom button too early and ate a stormstrike that the elemental shaman was supposed to have.

And so on.

You have some valid points there. It really is a game. You really are supposed to have fun here. You're paying $15 or so per month to play, so enjoy every minute of it, amiright?

But you're forgetting something.

This is WoW. World of Warcraft. It is not an RPG, it is an MMO. A Massive. Multiplayer. Online. RPG.

You know what that means?

That you are not the only person here paying $15 a month. There are at least 24 other people around you paying the same thing.

See that orc up front in the heavy armor? He's paying $15 a month to get the stuffing knocked out of him by everything from giant ogres to oversized jellyfish who shoot lasers from their eyes. Why does he do this? Why does he pay $15 a month to get shitkicked repeatedly? So everyone can have fun and enjoy awesome loots.
See that little troll at the back? The sexy one in the tight fitting dress? She's paying $15 a month to keep everyone else alive. When the orc in heavy armor gets hit, she's there to save his life. When something goes wrong, when some crazy ass naga goes around bitchslapping warlocks, she's there. Why does she do this? Why does she pay $15 a month to live a high stress job of any wipe being initially blamed on her? So everyone can have fun and enjoy awesome loots.
See that Tauren at the back there? the big guy with the giant tiger named "Fluffles"? He's paying $15 a month to shoot arrows into the bad guys. When the bad guys die, the tank stops getting bashed. When the bad guys die, the healers don't have to heal anymore. He's paying $15 a month because its damn fun to kill stuff.
To quote Shatha: "When I'm having fun, I want to kill stuff. When I kill stuff, I'm having fun."
That Tauren, he's here for murder.

So explain to me the logic that this is a game and you can do whatever. Explain that.

If you're a tank, and you bust out a 2H weapon, and die, and then everyone else dies, you just wasted everyone else's time. Everyone else does't think its hilarious to watch a tank get one-shotted. You may have enjoyed your $15, but everyone else did not enjoy their $360.

If you're a healer, and you start trying to DPS, then everyone else dies. The tank dies, the other healers die, and you die. Again, you just wasted everyone else's time and money. Their $360 a month, wasted because you wanted to have fun with your $15.

If you're a damage dealer, do the job right. Don't pull aggro. Do your job, and hurt the enemy. Do your crowd control properly. Everyone goes home happier, and you don't waste anyones time. Pulling aggro at the beginning of a fight with a 4k crit is NOT your job! Do it near the end, where you don't put everyone at risk by pulling aggro from the tank.

Learn your job. Do it well. Don't be an asshole. There is at least $375 a month at stake here, play it like you mean it.
And everyone, not just you, can have fun. And there will be phat lewtz for all.

World War One, all over again

Ever since 2.3, there have been some major changes to Alterac Valley.
These changes, I think, were supposed to make it more strategical, and try to end the endless zerg rushing of pre-2.3 AV.

The very first iteration of AV was a monstrosity, filled with random NPCs, and even a random rampaging Troll. It has undergone many, many changes, streamlining the battleground into a PvP battleground again.
However, it is one that requires a great deal of execution compared to the Old AVs.

Pre 2.3, you got honor when you killed stuff. Thats it. So everybody bum-rushed everyone else, got tons of honor, and churned out thousands of honor.

Now, things are different. Do you still get honor from killing stuff? Damn right you do. 62 honor for killing the Captain, destroying a tower or bunker. You also snag a hefty 83 honor from killing the end general.
!BUT!
At the end of the game, your team is awarded 41 honor for having intact towers, and a living Captain.
So you lose honor when a Tower is capped from your side. You lose honor when Balinda/Galv get killed.
Furthermore, when one of your towers is capped, you lose 75 reinforcements. And when a captain dies, there goes 100 reinforcements.

In essence, the new AV requires a solid defence now in addition to a powerful offence.
If everyone from your team zergs forward, you lose honor when Alliance kills your stuff. But, if no one goes on offence, then you don't get any honor from killing stuff.

The old Horde adage was "Defence is for pussies". The whole horde mentality was one of simply swarming whatever needed to be done. In AB, for example, nobody would defend Lumbermill, because if alliance capped it, horde would simply zerg it back. I participated in this many, many times while leveling up, and witnessed 5-caps at 29, 39, 49, 59, and 69.
In warsong, traditionally horde would not have anybody on defence, and simply attack the alliance. Any defence the alliance had (which was generally 4-8 people) were simply steamrolled, and we killed the alliance flag carrier on our way back. That was how warsong was played. Alliance would put up defence, horde would annihilate defence, horde would win.
Over and over again.
Pre-70, thats how the game is played. I cannot say this is true everywhere, but on Stormstrike, if horde ever devoted more than 10% of its avaliable resources to defence, we would lose. Guaranteed.

But times, they did a-change.

And now AV is unfriendly to pure offence strategies.

So. You need to have some folk on defence, and they better be some damn solid folk.
Don't misunderstand this. You do not win an AV by having Defence. You delay your opponents victory through defence.
All defence serves to do is slow down and hinder the enemies attack, while your own offence pushes through to ultimate victory. At absolute maximum, half the raid group will be on defence. ABSOLUTE MAX. You need a minimum of 20 people on offence if you expect to be victorious in any kind of timely manner.
So, where do we devide who goes on defence, and who goes on offence?
First off, the people on offence will be fighting a lot of NPC's, while those on defence almost never will, and will almost exclusively be fighting other players.
Thus, people with PvE builds and gear should go on offence right off the bat, and those with PvP builds and gear are better suited to playing on defence.
Second, there are some very nice talents/abilities that lend themselves specifically to a role in AV. Rogues, for example, have been longstanding examples of excellent Tower-cappers. If you can "Ninja" a graveyard or Tower, you are an incredible asset to a team.
Any and all AoE fears are incredibly useful on defence. Priests and warlocks can ruthlessly upset the offence of the opposing team. In the same regard, a Druid's Cyclone ability can be devastating if you cyclone the main tank of the other team.

You get the idea.

So where do we stand, as mages?

If you're in Karazhan gear, play offence. You have better PvE skills, and will be far more useful to an effective offence.
If you're sporting S2 arena gear, you're better off on defence, as you'll be more suited to the heavy PvP combat that comes from playing that side.

And now to specs.

If you're arcane, you are very well suited to playing on Offence. Solid DPS and raid power, coupled with the brief PvP potential from those 3 minute mage abilities, will make you perfectly suited to playing Offence. When your offence runs into the enemies defence, you can pop those powerful abilties to steamroll them, and get right back on to killing Archers/whatever.

Fire spec is kindof a tossup. In general, you're better of on Offence, putting those handy damage abilities to good use. However, abilities like Dragon's Breath are incredibly potent, and can seriously shut down the offence of an enemy. A 3 second AoE stun is ridiculously powerful. Use it wisely, you can make a huge dent in, for example, enemy healers. Dragon's Breath can also be used on offence, and, indeed, Blastwave + Dragon's Breath can often single-handedly break a stalemate. The sheer amount of devastating damage seriously weakens your opponents, allowing your teammates to take them down quickly.
You will often die rather shortly after unleashing Blastwave/Dragon's Breath on a collection of alliance/horde, however.

Frost is an amazing defence build. No if's or but's about it. Slows, roots, what's not to like? You can frustrate any advance easily. The whole makeup of frost is mastery of kiting, and doing massive damage while the enemy is rather strictly controlled. In essence, it is perfect for defence. And if some brilliant people are defending with you, you can be unstoppable.
In old AV, I've witnessed 3 frost mages and a pair of warlocks stall the entire alliance offence for a good 45 minutes. Endless roots and fears kept them at bay for a very long time.

TL;DR version: play to your spec and gear. Prot warrior with 19k hitpoints? Go on offence and help tank stuff. Shadow Priest with 12k hitpoints and 500 resilience? Go on defence, and be the shade that wouldn't die. Resto shaman in Tier 5, with mp5 so high it makes Holy Priests cry? Go on offence, and spam chain heal. Resto druid sporting S3 gear? Stay on defence, you will piss a lot of people off.

And if you find yourself in one of those stalemate AVs, where the whole fight is essentially btoh sides rezzing and killing each other every 30 seconds?
I feel for you.
Attrition battles in the new AV really, really suck.

AFK!!!

I experienced my very first AFKers in Arathi Basin today.

I was shocked. I was horrified.

I burst into tears at this heresy. Here we were, 11 horde strong, trying to fight off 15 alliance. For the entire battle, alliance held 2 bases, and horde held two bases, and there was always one or two nodes that were in conflict. Sometimes alliance would get three, sometimes horde would get three.
Sometimes Alliance zerged mine, and at one point alliance was capping everything except blacksmith.

And these ungrateful bastards sat in the starting room, getting their daily quest done for doing nothing at all.

Did I spam "AFK" report them? Darn tooting I did. I even went to the /bg chat and said "Report those damn AFKers"

To which some twisted soul replied "type /afk report to see the interface".

After he said that, three people on horde side promptly left the battleground

/slap

So that puts horde at 8 versus 15.

I took off my clothes and danced naked at farm.

7 horde versus 15 alliance.

Did we lose? Yes, we lost rather horribly at that point.

Was I happy? Damn right I was.

Some jackhole AFKers aren't getting a daily quest done on my watch.

The Ultimate Raid

Sure, you may have cleared Serpentshrine Cavern. You may have beaten the Eye, finished Hyjal, and even managed to take down Illidan himself.
But are you ready?

Are you ready for the ULTIMATE test of your mettle, your abilities to withstand such incredible and chaotic forces, and yet still maintain control and do your job?

I am, of course, talking about the World of Warcraft Forums.

The official WoW forums are known to cause serious injury to ones ability to think coherently, and have been proven to cause a loss of all basic motor skills.

Here are some Gems of comments I found from the Mage forums. Whether they are said in all seriousness, or as a joke, well, take a guess! That makes it so much more fun!

• Make ice block able to crit!
• in a world where a zombie can summon and then launch bolts of ice from their hands, gravity is the least you have to worry about. (In response to someone suggesting that Ice block should be able to crush someone if the mage uses it while above them)
• You mean this level 62 Paladin didn't hit 2500 in every bracket and then come post about it in the mage forums? (It was a keylogger)
• I could macro a Nintendo controller to play a 23/38 lock to maximum efficiency.
• Did anyone actually read my post? (to which the response was) silly bunny, this is the mage forums! no one ever reads well thought out posts!
• Oh pray do tell, how long does your CoC last ?
• NEW AND EXCITING METHODS OF EXPLOITING STUPIDITY!
• I swear, she told me she was 18!

Ehhh, not much of a post. But I laughed.

And its my blog. So whatever.