Catching Up

"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings." - Lewis Carroll

Unless this is your first visit to Battle Medic (and if so, welcome!), you are aware that the month of April was dominated by the 20 Days of WoW Challenge. I wasn't really able to do much posting on topics other than the challenge itself, so I figured that it might be nice to pull up a chair, pour ourselves a drink and catch up on what's been going on.


LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CHALLENGE

"Reading the quotes you chose for the beginnings of these posts is awesome sprinkles on a cupcake of win." - Glorwynn of Heavy Wool Bandage via Twitter

Of all the comments and reactions that my 20 Days of... blogathon generated, the one quoted above is my absolute favourite.

I learned many things during the last month while I tackled the Challenge. I learned that I like writing and posting everyday. And even though I didn't accomplish my goal of posting each and every day, I like the feeling of frequent posts. I have never in my life written as much or as often as I did last month. It was a lot harder than I thought to consistently churn out quality content, even when the topics were set ahead of time. Overall, however, I am extremely happy with how the Challenge went.

There are several posts that I am unsatified with (Day 7 and Day 19 were fairly lackluster efforts), but there are many more posts that I am very proud of: Day 5, talking about the books of Azeroth. Day 15 surprised me since the post ended up having nothing to do with WoW at all, but reads well and felt really good to write. The post on Day 17 is special because I had a lot of fun doing the images of Southshore and Loch Modan for it.

I also realized that I really enjoy writing the little in-character fiction pieces that I included in Day 20: Denouement, and the older post Pushing a Boulder Uphill. It is a completely different style of writing; one that is quite compelling and something that I want to explore further. I am very pleased with how Denouement turned out, even though I wish I would have given it one final edit before hitting the publish button - I think the prose could be a bit tighter.

The 20 Days of WoW Challenge also taught me that I have a long way to go in terms of engaging my readers and generating more interaction through the comments. I was blown away by the reader response to these posts when it came to pageviews - I averaged about 120 pageviews per day, not including people using readers - but those views didn't translate into comments. It's something that I would like to improve on, but am not entirely sure how.


THIS WEEK MONTH IN RAIDING

After several weeks of working on it to the exclusion of everything else, Shadowgarde finally managed to down Cho'gall a couple of times, bringing us to 9 of 12 bosses down in normal progression. Cho'gall still refuses to drop Holy Paladin gear, however, which puts him on my naughty list.

I find it amazing that once I got comfortable with what I needed to do and when I needed to do it, the fight becomes quite easy. The trick for me as the Paladin assigned to the tanks was to learn to anticipate the moments during the add phases that the Cho'gall tank would be taking extreme damage and to time the use of cooldowns accordingly. As well, convincing the Add Tank to stay within Line-of-Sight so that my Beacon of Light could heal him helped tremendously.

Unfortunately, we've had a bit of a setback in raid attendance. Our two tanks and several of our regular raiders have gone AWOL since Easter, leaving us scrambling for alternatives. We've been doing fine; we're still managing to get our farm bosses down without too much fuss, but our progression work on Nefarian has completely ground to a halt. And with Patch 4.2 looming on the horizon and with it the imminent appearance of the next raiding tier, time is running out to accomplish my 12/12 goal.


LOWBIE ADVENTURES IN TANKING

What does it mean when there are a dozen mobs running all over the place, spells flying every-which-way, so many things going on that I can't even begin to keep track of them all, and through it all somebody is constantly punching me in the face?

Oh yes, it must mean that I'm tanking.

I took Fannon 2.0 into the Scarlet Monastery Library last night to get the last experience points needed to finally ding level 40. In the process I dipped my foot into tanking for the first time since the Elemental Invasions that preceded Cataclysm, and for the first time ever on a Paladin.

Now, firstly, I was a full five levels above the next highest in the group and going into the SM Library at the very last level that I was eligible to do so in the Dungeon Finder, so I expected it to be a complete faceroll. I wasn't disappointed, either. We steamrolled the dungeon, and I was doing double the DPS of the next highest person - again, not unexpected given the level discrepancy.

I mention it because even given all that, Tanking is just as chaotic and insane as I remember. Trying to keep track of where the mobs are, who they're attacking and still keep up a threat/DPS rotation was a lot of work, whereas healing the same dungeon on my lowbie Shaman, Thallie, was a snorefest.

We succeeded and completed the dungeon without any casualties, or really even any real scares, even when I pulled Arcanist Doan somewhat prematurely. But the lesson learned here is that I need to do a lot of work before I can call myself an accomplished Tank. It gives me a new appreciation for what those meat-shields go through every raid.

On the other hand, my main's Protection off-spec (which arguably has better gear than my main spec), is a lot of fun to play doing dailies on Tol Barad.


THE FAST AND FURIOUS FOURTEEN LEVELS... WITH BUNNIES

The wife and Dwarfling went to visit family for six days over the Easter holidays, which allowed me the unprecedented opportunity to binge on WoW like I haven't done in months. And while I spent a fair bit of time raiding and instancing on my main, I also dedicated a great deal of time to my young, dungeoneering Shaman.

When we last left Thallie she still had the Level 30 achievement banner hanging off of her, and when the Easter weekend started that's just where she remained. Twenty-four hours after my wife left for her trip and dozens of random dungeon runs later, however, Thallie was sitting at a very pretty level 40. All told I probably spent about Eight or Nine hours running dungeon after dungeon and having an absolute blast.

Scarlet Monastery Library, Armory and Cathedral, Razorfen Kraul, Maraudon, Dire Maul Warpwood Quarter, and Uldaman were all knocked down in exceptionally short order.

In the process I was fortunate to run into a couple of extremely good groups of people. On two separate occasions the random groups were fun and chatty and above all competent, and so stayed together for multiple instances. As fast and anonymous as the Dungeon Finder can tend to make instance runs, it's still a wonderful feeling when you run across that great group that is a lot of fun to play with. It's a pity that it doesn't happen very often.

Aside from the dungeons, though, I also decided to get Thallie her first title. Noblegarden has been my favourite WoW holiday ever since I did it for the first time on my priest, and "The Noble" is probably my favourite title as well. I ended up gaining about two levels just from doing the holiday quests and the few quests required to get the boat needed to cross Thousand Needles so I could do [Desert Rose] and [Hard Boiled].

Bunnies! Bunnies, it must be bunnies!

The tricky part of the Noblegarden meta achievement for me was finding an Orc female, which apparently are as rare as a Blood Elf with a mullet on my server. I even tried running Battlegrounds to see if I could find one there (which ended up getting me another 2 levels). I ended up riding to Orgrimmar (Water Walking for the win) and using Far Sight (also, FTW) to spy on the entrance to see if I could spot one. It took me two evenings of searching, but I eventually found that green, fanged goddess, stuck bunny ears on her and got my achievement. The Hordies that were outside Orgrimmar only killed me a little.

They were rather short-sighted considering Thallie is a relatively rare Dwarf Female, and was also wearing the Elegant Dress - perfect for their holiday achievement needs.

Oh well... say hello to Thallie the Noble, level 44.
 
 

Blogservations: Random Thoughts on Writing and Warcraft

This post is a desperate attempt to find a reason to use the term “Hodge-Podge” in a way that doesn't require double-quotes.  Success is by no means assured.

I have been blogging now for about six weeks and have recently been dealing with a minor bout of writer's block.  It's my first, so I'm not entirely sure what to do with it; is there a protocol or tradition for dealing with your first bout?  Are you supposed to frame it and put it on your wall like the first dollar that a fledgling business earns, to forever be a reminder that, yes, things have sucked worse than they do now?  Or is the inability to get past the blank word document a dirty little secret that you need to take to your grave, since talking about it is considered a grievous faux pas like mentioning a no-hitter during a baseball game?

As a complete non-sequitur, I really like abusing semi-colons.  I feel like every sentence deserves one.   Besides, I think that commas are overworked and that it's a good idea to give them a break unless they start a revolution and overthrow the world's governments.  I, for one, welcome our new comma overlords.

It's not that I don't have any ideas on what to write, I have lots of ideas for posts.  In my drafts folder on blogger, on my work and home computer's word processors are snippets, thoughts and orphaned titles of posts that are germinating in my brain but can't seem to get out of the grey matter.  There is no greater feeling of creative helplessness than staring at a blank page or canvas without the faintest idea of what to fill it with.

Even the Blog Azeroth Shared Topics, normally a goldmine for any Warcraft blogger that is feeling lost for a topic, have eluded me.  Last weeks topic “An Open Letter To…” stumped me for a solid week, and after each attempt was mercilessly aborted for being completely awful, I just threw up my hands and walked away from it.  I thought that a topic with completely endless possibilities would be fantastic, but the lack of direction ended up taking my mind in so many directions that physicists are going to have to create a few new dimensions just to accommodate them all.

At least with the current one “Are Five Levels Enough” I can simply say, “Yes” and move on.  Hey, does this post now count as my response?  I can already feel the link love.

After six weeks of writing for my blog, I've managed to observe a few things.  First of all, this project really is the first real writing I've done since university.  I worry that my style has become, well, rather staid and boring at times, having something to do with the fact that the major source of actual, real writing that I've done for the past ten years have been professional letters for work.  Inserting some personality and humour into a serious post can be mind-numbingly frustrating, and at the same time I wonder if small, throwaway posts like this one aren't worth the bother since why waste everyone's time?  There is always the nagging self-doubt hanging in the back of my mind that when I am writing something personal nobody is really all that interested in reading it, and that I'm not enough of an expert to write the IMPORTANT POSTS.

Still, I've really enjoyed writing again.  It's always something that I've enjoyed but never did, so this has been a wonderful outlet for me.  To both of the people who have read this far, I truly appreciate it.

Another thing I've observed is that Twitter is enormously distracting when you want to get any real work done.  Want to sit down and write a post?  Oops, Twitter has a new message.  Need to do the job you get paid for?  Wait, what is twitter saying about Wil Wheaton?  I always feel like I'm missing something vital and game-changing when there is a new, unread Tweet.  I get this weird burning in the back of my brain when I can't click on it to find out what it's all about.

In the past, whenever I've been feeling creatively stagnant, there have always been a few places I could go for inspiration.  For my photography, I could go to an art gallery or peruse any of the dozens of books that I have on the subject.  If I just wanted a buzz and a boost to my overall creativity, I would read U2: At The End of The World, which for some reason works on my brain like putting a packet of Mentos into Diet Coke:  everything gets all fizzy and starts spewing out uncontrollably and eventually you'll end up sticky.

For writing, however, there really is only one book worth picking up; only one book that energizes me enough to face the demon of the blank Word document.  (There you are Semi-colon, my pretty.  I've missed you).  Douglas Adams's The Salmon of Doubt, which in a sense is not a proper book:  merely a collection of writings from one of the most brilliant minds to ever postulate that sticking a fish in your ear was a good idea.  The articles in the book itself are wonderful to read, but most importantly, The Salmon of Doubt shows me how to be a writer.  There is no trick, you just have to write.  You need to write all the time, about whatever comes to your mind.  Vomit it on the page (or in this case laptop... who writes longhand blog posts?) and see if there are any undigested chunks of good writing in there.

I picked it up last night and started reading it, and well, 900ish words later here we are.  In case you haven't guessed yet, this post has nothing to do with WoW and the title was just to draw you in (I'm sneaky, aren't I).  But as a new blogger, and a person who only recently started to think of themselves as a writer, I felt I needed to get this out.  I think there are at least one or two readable bits here, although I'd be careful... it might just be some corn that I ate last night.

On Heroics: When Is The Nerf Bat Appropriate?

Yesterday was a very interesting day when it comes to Heroic Dungeons. 

Rohan at Blessing of Kings did the WOW blogging equivalent of sticking a hand grenade in a hive of killer bees, calling for Heroic Dungeons to be nerfed.  This follows Ghostcrawler’s informative, but rather oddly timed post where he says that yes, heroics are hard and that's what Blizzard intended.  Meanwhile, the 4.0.6 patch notes are released detailing a very long list of nerfs to the very same dungeons that Ghostcrawler was talking about keeping difficult.  As Janyaa at Muradin Musings aptly pointed out, it seems like Blizzard is giving us an inconsistent message

Rohan’s point (and I encourage you to read his post if you already haven’t) was that Heroics are positioned as a “necessary stepping stone” to raiding, and as such the difficulty level is simply a barrier that a large percentage of the player base are unable to get past and is therefore being turned off of raiding. 

NERFS HAVE THEIR PLACE

I can understand where he is coming from, and I have seen people who have been intimidated enough by the difficulty of the Heroic Dungeons that they have either switched to an easier role, given up raiding or given up the game altogether.  In our guild, for instance, we had 7 people say that they planned on healing in raids come Cataclysm, but now that we're here we have only 2, plus one other who stepped up and respeced when the lack of healers became evident.  In each case, the people who have stopped healing did so because healing in heroic dungeons was difficult enough so as to prevent it from being fun.

I’m sure by now most of us have had the experience of entering a random Heroic and spending 2 hours running up against a brick wall.  The inevitable end result of these evenings is a feeling of frustration and that you wasted your time and have nothing to show for your effort.  I can only speak as a healer, but depending on the gear level of the group, it can be bloody murder going through a dungeon when you have 2 or 3 people who are undergeared.  And as Rohan pointed out and we I'm experiencing with my own guild, this can deter people from even wanting to step foot into a raid.

One of the major drawbacks with using difficult Heroics as a gear gateway to raiding is the time that it takes to run them.  Spending 1 to 3 hours (sometimes more) on a single dungeon run is frustrating and restrictive when you are a player with limited play time.  And that is made worse if you don't get a drop from it.  Making the dungeons easier would speed things up and allow people to run them more frequently, thereby getting more drops and more Justice Points and allowing a quicker journey up the gear ladder.  

However, the biggest problem with heroics right now is that some encounters have specific ability requirements that can make it completely impossible to complete the fight without them.  Baron Ashbury is a great example of an encounter that is essentially impossible if you do not have at least two players with a reliable interrupt.  As well, without two CCers, Lady Naz’Jar or Beauty are very difficult if not impossible to defeat.  It is not fun to zone into a dungeon and know that simply because of the class make-up of your party that you cannot hope to complete it.  Nerfing encounters to be more accommodating to a wider variety of group compositions is a good change.

THE BENEFITS OF FAILING

On the other hand, the thrill of getting a great group together, random or not, that can persevere through the difficult encounters (Commander Springvale, I’m looking at you) is fantastic.  There was nothing in WotLK short of raid bosses that compares to the exhilaration of downing a heroic boss or figuring out a mechanic that your random group of strangers has worked on for an hour.

There are other benefits of very difficult heroic dungeons as well, especially if you look at them as a gateway to raiding.  It stands to reason that a player who does not take the time to learn the skills needed to successfully make his way through heroics has no business stepping into a raid in the first place.  Heroics that are difficult teach players teamwork, communication, how to deal with boss mechanics and most importantly, patience.  These are all essential skills in raiding, and a player who lacks one or more of them can be a hindrance to a raid until he learns.  Easy heroics teach impatience and the infamous “Gogogogogogo” attitude that we had to deal with ever since the Dungeon Finder was introduced.

Also, it's important to know that these heroics do get easier the more you do them and the better your gear gets.  The difference (at least for me) of doing heroics with an average gear level of 329 to doing them with a 341 average has been astonishing.  The interesting thing about my experiences is that I have had the worst luck with Holy Paladin drops in Heroics.  Most of my gear has come from high level normal dungeons, faction reputations or Justice Points.  It is actually very easy to get a level of gear that makes heroics much less terrifying and frustrating without ever setting foot in one.

Of course, knowing the encounters tends to help as well, and the more you run them the more comfortable the mechanics will become.  Given the amount of information that is available on the fights in these heroics, there is no excuse to walk into a dungeon without at least a passing familiarity with it.  If nothing else, ask if you don't know the encounter.  A vast majority of the time someone will tell you want to do and what you need to avoid.  

WHEN TO USE THE NERF BAT

In my opinion, an encounter should only be reduced in difficulty if an average group in appropriate gear would find it nearly impossible to complete without perfect play.  It makes no sense to nerf encounters so that any random PUG can get through it with no difficulty, particularly if there are undergeared people in the group.  On the other hand, just because well geared and coordinated groups can breeze through an instance does not mean that it is too easy, either.  A properly tuned encounter should require communication and coordination but should not require a specific class or ability, nor should it be so difficult that you need to be wearing full heroic gear in order to have a reasonable chance of success.

I hope that Blizzard is not downgrading these heroic dungeon encounters to cater to people who get the minimum item level requirement for heroics and expect to breeze through them like we all did in Wrath.  At 329 these heroics should be bloody hard!  As it is designed right now, once you are at the minimum item level, it is still in your best interests to continue questing and farming normal dungeons until you have enough gear to make the heroic runs a lot smoother.  A lot of people will jump straight into heroics because that's how it was done in Wrath and its what we're used to.  As Ghostcrawler pointed out in his post, there is a lot of great iLvl 333 gear that's available in the Twilight Highlands quests and in the higher level Normal Dungeons, and getting this gear makes running Heroics much easier.

However, if an encounter is legitimately too hard for an appropriately geared group, then the Nerf Bat should start a-whackin’. 

FINALLY, THE POINT

Heroics do not need to be nerfed.  They do, however, need to be tweaked and rebalanced to allow for the realities of the Random Dungeon Finder.  I think it is important that any reasonably geared group of any composition should have the ability to at least have a chance of completing a dungeon.  The heroics will still be hard, just not so dependant on group composition, the evil Random Number Generator or other things that are quite often out of the players control.

Looking at the changes that Blizzard is proposing, I don't think they are doing anything so major to these encounters so as to reduce the difficulty back to Wrath of the Lich King levels.  The era of silent zergs with random strangers is still a thing of the past, at least until the gear levels escalate and the Loot Piñatas start popping.

What Makes a Main?

(or Why There Are Distressingly Few Dwarves Mentioned In Dwarven Battle Medic)

I imagine that anyone who is reading this blog with any regularity has noticed that it has a very distinct Holy Paladin slant to it and that there seems to be a decided lack of Dwarves around.  Oh sure, there is a picture of a Dwarf in a dress at the top, and a nice shot of Ironforge in the background, but the Dwarven Battle Medic seems to talk an awful lot about Human Paladins, doesn’t he?

So where the hell are all the Dwarves?

The answer is simple enough:  My main character is Thosif, the Human Holy Paladin.  Fannon the Dwarf Priest is an Alt.  This blog and I are named after an Alt. 

This really brings up an interesting question:  How do you define “Main” or “Alt”?  What criteria do you use to define who your main is?  Is there a difference between your Main Character and the Character that you personally identify with or are identified by?  This question was asked recently by the lovely and talented Endyme of (Un)Holy Randomness and is one of those philosophizing topics that I find endlessly fascinating.

WHAT IS A MAIN?

(or My Definition Of A Maintastic Play Style)

Every person is different, of course, and you would likely find that there are as many answers to this question as there are World of Warcraft players.  The only thing that twelve million WOW subscribers have ever agreed on is that THEIR class is underpowered and YOURS is overpowered and should be nerfed.  Of course that is untrue -- except in the case of Holy Paladins, who are clearly underpowered and should be buffed. 

My definition of a “Main” is the one character that, above all others, dominates your thoughts.  It is defined by passion.  It is the character that you speak of first when someone asks you “What do you play?”  It is the character that you log onto first when the new content drops.  It was the character that you were most excited to level to 85 in Cataclysm.  More than likely it is the character that you want to raid with, if you’re a raider.  It is, simply, the character that you are excited about and want to play when you sit down at your computer after a long day at work.

Who did you log onto first on December 7^th?  Odds are that’s your main.

Mains can change over time, and there are as many reasons as there are people playing.  Interests change:  You may be bored of tanking and want to try damage or healing, you may become enamoured with a different class’s playstyle, or perhaps you created a new character of a different race that has caught your imagination.  There is no way to know what factor will come into play that will cause you to emotionally switch from one Main to another.

There is also a difference between your Main Character and the character that you are identified by.  I go by the name Fannon because that was my Main when I joined Shadowgarde and it’s the name that I have chosen to identify myself by in the blogosphere as well.  The name you go by can change over time as you meet new people who only know you by your new Main’s name.

Of course, emotional attachments run deep and sometimes it is hard to let go of an old main.  Many times the player will be the last person to realize that their main has switched or only realize it long after the emotional switch.  When I declared my new main on the Shadowgarde forums it was a case of “We know” and “about time you admitted it”.  Sometimes you have to just realize that it’s OK to switch Mains.  (Really, Endy, it’s OK).

It is this emotional attachment that led me to naming this blog Dwarven Battle Medic even though my new main is a human. 

WHAT MAKES AN ALT?

(or Captain Obvious Visits Obviousland)

An Alt then is straightforwardly defined as any character that isn’t your main.  People will have Alts for many different reasons; banking, trade skills, PVP, different roles or play-styles.  Sometimes people will have a separate account so they can play two characters at once.  Some people will have an army of Alts with multiple max-level characters while others will have a stable of lowbie characters so that they can experience different things.

Really, there are no rules when it comes to Alts.  Alts are there to fulfill the player’s desire for variety or provide access to something that their main can’t do.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAINS

(or Where The Hell Did The Last Two-And-A-Half Years Go?)

I rolled several different characters (including Thosif) before I finally rolled one that resonated with me enough to finally, truly call my Main Character.  This was Fannon.  I rolled my priest so that I could play with my nephew and was so enthralled by the play-style that he became my first level 80.  He was the first toon that I did dungeons with, the first character that I took on a raid, and the first toon that I took through Icecrown Citadel, going 11/12.  It was through my Dwarf Priest that I learned how much I enjoyed healing and Sindragosa 10, my most satisfying boss kill to date, was done on him.  I joined my guild during this time and so I, of course, became known to them as “Fannon”.  By other names too, but those aren’t appropriate for polite blogging.

In what is likely to seem a familiar story, during Wrath I dabbled with other characters to try and experience everything this game has to offer.  Thosif, who I had created very early on but had let languish for a year at level 19, finally caught my eye and I decided to level him to 85.  I was originally going to level him as a tank since I already had my healer, but a guildie was levelling a Protection Warrior at the same time, so I decided to respec Holy so we could run dungeons together.  The first dungeon I ran as a Holy Paladin was a revelation.  The Paladin healing style was far more simplistic than a Holy or Discipline priest, but incredibly and fantastically fun.

I was still raiding with Fannon at this time; steadily progressing his gear through ICC 10 and 25-man raids, but when I got home from work at night, the first thing I wanted to do was play on my Paladin.  I blitzed through Outlands and Northrend to get to the level cap and jumped into heroics to start gearing up.  Meanwhile, I was discovering and devouring every Paladin blog on the internet to learn how to best play him.  The Priest was more and more becoming an afterthought. 

The exact moment when Thosif became my Main is unclear, and I certainly didn’t recognize it at the time.  At some point I started asking for my somewhat undergeared Paladin to be included in our ICC runs.  Oh, it was just Alt runs at first, of course, but soon I wanted to bring him into our progression runs as well instead of the Priest.  It was Fannon who got Sindragosa down for the first time, but it was Thosif that killed the Lich King.  It was in between those two events (which sadly happened a long time apart) that my Main switched, at least emotionally.

When Cataclysm dropped, I couldn’t wait to log onto Thosif and start levelling.  Fannon is still sitting in Ironforge in 251 epics collecting the Rested XP bonus at level 80.

AN APOLOGY

(or I Can’t Believe You Read This Far.  Seriously.)

I would like to offer a bit of an apology to anyone who made it this far.  One thing I wanted to avoid with this blog is a lot of pie-eyed ramblings about my characters and what they had for breakfast that day.  I know a lot of people don’t find that kind of thing interesting, so I try to avoid it wherever I can.  In this case, however, I thought a little history of my own experience with the Main-change would be relevant.  I hope you found it interesting at least.

How do you define your Main?  Have you ever changed your Main?  If so, at what point did you realise that it had changed, or was it a conscious choice?

First Lessons from Heroics - Communication

This is not news, but Cataclysm Heroic 5 Man dungeons are very hard.

Well, kind of.  It depends on the group and how well it communicates.  In my opinion, communication is the single most important factor in determining the group’s success.  All other things being equal, a group that talks to each other and discusses or explains the encounter strategies will succeed where one that doesn’t communicate will fail.

The PUG groups that I have been paired with using the LFD finder have been failing a lot.

With most LFD groups, the communication has been terrible, and its really been affecting the results.  I’ll give you four examples using a couple of the runs that I have done over the past couple of days which have had differing levels of communication and differing levels of success.