Attunements in Cataclysm (possible spoilers)

Newish Blizzard "blue" post:

Looking to Cataclysm, maybe you want to know that, for normal dungeons, players must discover the dungeon in the world prior to access it from LFD tool. It is possible that you could see attunements for heroics and raids (which would be similar to the one of Karazhan). Developers aren’t sure yet of whether they use attunements or not. However, heroic dungeons at level 85 would probably have more gear requirement (in comparison) than heroic dungeons at level 80.

So .. attunements.  Awesome.  For someone like myself who only had one level-capped toon at the very end of BC, the idea of doing quest chains to "open" a heroic or raid is interesting to me, and it would indeed prevent the noobs and baddies from just stumbling out of the greens-and-blues questing scene to heroics and raids.

Except ... what about someone like myself, who has four level-capped alts?  Doing said attunement chains would be fun and exciting the first time around, but the second?  The FOURTH?

Hell to the no.

So I propose this:

Do the attunement chain once, get the "key" for a particular heroic or raid at the end, and have that key be account-bound.  Have gear requirements for the heroics and raids, still, but make it so that alts don't have to go through the exact same long quest chains that were JUST DONE in order to get into something.

I wouldn't oppose the "key" being account-bound AND faction-specific, either, if they wanted to do a separate quest chain for the factions.  As long as I don't have to do the same quests over and over and over again.

I love the gear requirements on the harder heroics, like Halls of Reflection - sure, it prevents me and my guildies from "running" someone's alt through it to gear them up, but that's really no skin off my back.  :-P

What do you think?  Attunements?  Hell no?

Is Blizzard greedy?

This post sat in my drafts for a little while, unfinished because I got busy.  So .. late to the party once again.

So Sparkle Ponies were released, and everyone had an opinion.  The first day they came out, I was reading over my Google Reader and came across a long-time blogger who managed to put the words "Blizzard" and "greedy" in the same sentence, relating one to the other. 

I shut my Reader down in disgust.  I'm tempted to unsubscribe from their feed, to be honest.  Their walls-o-text are usually boring and I usually only skim them, anyway, but when they said that ... well ..

I don't want to talk politics here.  Not really.  I'm quasi-Libertarian, I'm against government bloat and waste and I'm for people taking care of their own damn selves, not looking to the government to wipe their asses for them.  I'm GLAD I live in America, where we are at least somewhat free from complete socialist control.

So, do I think Blizzard is being "greedy" because of this new RMT?  It's a pretty, shiny thing, no in-game advantage, just a simple skin over whatever mount you currently have.  If I had the extra $25, I'd buy one for myself without question - when I first saw pictures of it, I claimed that it was the second coolest mount I had ever seen for the game, after Ashes of A'lar. 

Blizzard sold a ton, no surprise.  They made a good chunk of change that day.  The price was out of reach or simply unacceptable to many, many people.  "Slippery slope" arguments abounded, with semi-good reason (my opinion - I get what those people were saying, but I really don't think this is a slope towards anything - Blizzard will not be selling gear or other items with an in-game advantage, I'm relatively sure of it). 

But the "greedy" comment .. really?  A private company, NOT a charity, in a country where capitalism is the name of the game, makes for purchase a small cosmetic item.  No guns to heads, no advantages to having it, no threats of purchase-or-die .. just a simple cosmetic, useless item offered for purchase that people can choose to buy or not. 

In a capitalistic society like ours, companies start up to make money, not to give away things.  That's what charities and, to a more frowned-upon (by me) sense, government agencies are for.  They continue to make money, they continue to operate, employing loads of people and putting out a superior product.  In Blizzard's case, they continue making this wonderful game with a relatively cheap suscription fee (I spend hours a day [can be unlimited] playing WoW for $15 per month, but I spend roughly 1 hour a week watching tv for $35 a month for basic cable, or spend $9 for a 2 hour movie, $50 for a day at the amusement park, etc. - what's the cheaper amount spent on entertainment out of all of those?).  Is that greedy?  Who gets the money? 

Why, it goes to overhead, mostly.  Paying for the facilities in which the developers work, and the salaries and benefits of those employees.  A large portion goes to taxes to the Royal Government, and yes Blizzard donates to charities.  I'm going to assume that like most companies, Blizzard rewards their employees with bonuses and perks for a job well done.   Like any company, no one person in charge gets to walk away with all the cash.  It gets SPENT, right back into the company to keep it running.

So what's all this "Blizzard is greedy" nonsense?  Seems that it came from some socialist-loving liberal who doesn't understand economics at all, in my opinion.  But what do I know?  I'm just another "greedy" person, taking home as much money as I can from my paycheck every two weeks - I'm not giving it away.  If I get extra, I'm treating myself for a job well done, not giving it to someone else.

UI Post!

So I did a UI post way back in the day, but now it's completely different.  I found problems with Quartz recently - there are these little tiny bars that track my dots that appear on both the top right and bottom left of the Quartz cast bar, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get rid of them.  They screwed with my whole set up, and I completely deleted the UI in frustration and started over.

I downloaded Coehl's UI after it was featured on WoW.com one day.  I kept finding that I had this weird need to have access to all sorts of actions and items even though I didn't need them necessarily in combat.  Coehl's UI was the answer - it's set up to where there's a bunch of buttons hidden behind the dps meters (in this case, Skada) so that you can merely click on a tab and have access to them if you need them, but you don't have to clutter your screen with extra action bars.  There's also some extra action bars on a sort of "sidebar" that is also hidden at any time with the click of a button (if you wish), and the minimap does the same thing.  I did not find everything that I wanted with Coehl's UI, however, so I erased some things and replaced others, and added yet a few more (ugh, I hate you PallyPower, but dammit you are necessary). 

Here's a screenshot of a very recent raid - last week's Heroic 25 man Festergut and Heroic 25 man Marrowgar, to be exact:

• A.  Fortress - my Fubar thingy, I'm "meh" about it, really, and I've seen better looking ones, but I've been too lazy to go searching for a fix.
• B.  CooldownButtons - I don't even know why I installed this, really - to keep track of the Rebirth cooldown?  I look at it for my Fear Ward cooldown, but that's about it - I need to consolidate this information into the "shorter" cooldown tracker
• C.  Decursive - Ah, good old Decursive, how I love you.  I really prefer this method of dispelling poisons, diseases, and curses to tracking this stuff on Grid or some other method - the familiar sound it makes when something is applied to a raid member that I can remove/dispel, the little colored box (and number, if stackable) - this addon is essential for me
• D.  Grid - I'm sort of apathetic about my raid frames - I want something that's not totally in the way when I'm dpsing or tanking, but I do want to be able to see everything I need to see when healing.  I can move this Grid frame out of the way or disable it if I need to, but it seems to really take up a lot of space.  I dunno.  Doesn't fit anywhere else for now.
• E.  Chatter - my chat addon, gives a lot of information and filters, but I just use it straight out of the box and it suits me fine
• F.  Heatsink - My cooldown timer.  ForteXorcist was giving me hives, was doing something wonky, so I removed it and switched to Heatsink.  I can't seem to figure out how to add abilities to track on it, however, and I think it's only tracking cooldowns and not actual dot durations like the duration of Flame Shock (it'll track the cooldown of general "shock" spells, but it won't tell me how long Flame Shock is ticking on my target), nor will it tell me what's ticking on mobs that I'm not targetting (though I think there's a way to add this).  I might try something else - seems like there should be something easy that tracks dots AND cooldowns.  My head is stuffy just thinking about configuring something like that for all of my toons and specs, though.
• G.  Pitbull - my unit frames.  serviceable, I suppose, but nothing spectacular - does what I want, and that's good enough for me - G is me, G1 is my focus, G2 is my target's target (making sure my tank has aggro on what I'm attacking), and G3 is my target
• H.  AzCastBar - I dumped Quartz to make out with this, though I'm not as in love with it like I was with Quartz.  Seems to do what Quartz did, though, so I'm not sure what it is about it that I'm not all that impressed with ...
• I.  Bartender - I like Dominoes, since it's so easy to configure, but this UI package came with Bartender and I didn't have to configure anything, so I have no opinion of this
• J.  (the one in the middle of the screen - I'm a noob and labeled two J.'s)  MFClip - just for shadowpriesting, but it seems to be very in your face, I don't know if I like it all that much
• J.  (the one at the bottom right)  Skada - Recount+Omen in one, does everything except the pretty pie charts - this UI comes with a second Skada window (you can easily make one yourself, though) for tracking threat (J1) at the same time as dps, and it takes less memory that only Recount, much less Recount+Omen - I love it, and will probably never switch back, even if a future UI package comes with the two
• K.  Mik's Scrolling Battle Text (MSBT) - my combat text, really easy to configure, the main thing I like to see on a combat text is how many targets my Mind Sear is hitting - everything else is just filler for me (though Mik's throws out the "____ spell ready!" messages that are handy
• L.  Power Auras Classic - PAC is a proc tracker - I also want to roll this into my cooldowns and dots tracker, but for now, this works - the exclamation mark is telling me that Black Magic has procced (there's a timer for it, but it's hard to see in the shot) and I can refresh VT and DP and drop MB for the duration of it, and time another DP and VT at the end if I didn't get one in the beginning
• M.  Deadly Boss Mods - my boss mod of choice - I've tried Deux Vox and Bigwigs, but nothing beats that "BURR BURR" warning sound telling me to get my ass out of the fire, etc
• N.  pMinimap - resizes and moves the minimap and let's you configure what you want showing on it - nothing too exciting here
• O.  TipTac - I love this tooltip addon, but don't ask me how to configure it
• P.  Satrina Buff Frames - my buffs/debuffs tracker thingy, I like glancing at buttons more than bars
• Q.  TidyPlates+ThreatPlates - LOVE this nameplate addon combo - big and green outline for mobs that I do not have the aggro of, red and smaller if I have aggro - can't be much simpler - very handy when I'm tanking and looking at a screen full of nameplates - I can just manually click on the green nameplates and taunt

So that's it - I like the layout, and everything I want is on the screen, but I dunno - seems a bit cluttered, and I'd like to consolidate my cooldowns, track my dots, and track my procs in one addon, if possible.  I also want an easier way to tell if I am missing a buff or not.  Any suggestions on improvement, simplification, or complete redos would be appreciated.

Cata class previews (spoilers!) and D's thoughts

Anyone else just skip right on past the blog posts featuring Cataclysm class previews?  Especially if they are for a class you don't play?  Yeah.

So I'm not going to regurgitate the blue posts - these are just some meandering thoughts on some of the "previews":

1.  I couldn't believe how bored I was when reading the priest preview - especially for shadow.  Floating orbs?  Really?  *snooze*  Mind Spike would be more interesting if it didn't have a cast time - I want something to spam while moving, dammit.  But at least we'll get to move faster.  And I don't heal much nowadays, but yay for Power Word: Barrier!  I have a sneaking suspicion I've heard about a spell like that before, though ...

2.  WHATISTHISIDONTEVEN!  Shamans already do poo damage compared to mages (similar gear and skill for both - don't lie, you know it's true), whether it's because of the bullshit "hybrid tax" or just because Blizzard sucks at shaman dps design.  Either way, now mages do more damage AND get heroism/bloodlust?  Maybe K will become my farming toon in the expansion - they already gave her totem buffs to other classes, after all.  Take away her heroism, and all she has left is poo damage (I do more damage on all of my other dps toons, after all, even though I'm better geared on her) and great healing (but I don't LIKE shaman healing, BLAH). 

3.  Oh, there were hunter, rogue, death knight, warlock, and warrior changes?  I didn't read them - anything cool?

4.  No more permanent tree form, QQ.  I can understand the "outrage", but really, I can understand Blizzard's side of things, too.  The tree forms look like soggy, days-old cooked asparagus tops - if they were flowering and lush and green and pretty, I could understand wanting to look like that all the time.  But really, threatening to reroll or cancel because you won't be a tree full time?  Seriously?

5.  Speaking of druids, I LOVE LOVE LOVE TANKING AS A BEAR.  I see absolutely zero problems with bear tanks - they are super awesome to play.  Okay, I take that back - on Lich King phase 1, I kept pulling threat off of our bear tank until I went and respecced with a point in that shadow threat reduction talent.  The bear is massively geared and very talented, and I was just doing my normal "rotation" (with Fade every cooldown) - so it definitely wasn't the bear's fault.  Glad to see that Blizzard is keeping bears in mind when trying to fix "threat".

Some of the elemental shaman changes do sound kind of cool, like that earthquake thing.  I just last night respecced enhancement back to elemental, just to try to not fail at it (again).  I don't know, though - it's the lack of mobility that really gets me (same with boomkins).  I know shadow priests have their rough spots while moving, but at least we have a way to regen mana (dispersion) and we have most of our damage tied up in dots which are still ticking during movement.  Balance druids (S's offspec) have only a couple of not-that-great dots, and shamans have exactly one (Flame Shock).  Could throw a Magma Totem down before moving (but that in itself would require moving - elemental shamans don't exactly stand right next to the boss most fights) and use Fire Nova on cooldown, but it's just not that much damage if you are moving and changing targets for most of the fight.  I guess I just can't really get into it as much as I can on D.

Plus, reading some of the changes, it seems as if Blizzard really wants to focus more on movement-oriented fights.  All those movement speed increases for all those classes should be telling us something.  Even priests get one.  But again, do shamans?  Balance druids?  Nada.  Unless they get roared on by a bear tank - but once again, when do ranged dps stand beside tanks/next to the boss?

Sounds like I need to focus on my 2-button arcane mage TW (now level 74) and my super cool rogue T (level 44ish I think).  I hate healing, anyway - not sure how all four of my level 80's happened to be the exact four classes that could heal. 

I'll almost certainly drop balance for resto on S, and I might race change him.  I love him as a night elf, honestly, but if we get to LOOK like a worgen even we are druids (I never understood the appeal of being a worgen druid, if you won't see the worgen form anyway) that would be pretty cool.  I'm still iffy on the worgens, though - I want to look like a worgen, but the casters seem kind of goofy (wolves in dresses) and I hate hate hate the human models (especially the males).  So I'd only want to be a worgen tank or melee dps, but druids will only have cat or bear, so you won't see the worgen forms anyway ...

Well, that was rambling.  Good to be blogging again, so you (all one of you) can read my thoughts and go "wha?"  Right on, D.

My next post will probably be on my fail UI, pictures and all.  It's serviceable, certainly, and I have definitely seen worse (did you see that WoW.com one maybe two "UI Post"s ago?  Holy Moly!) but I get bored easily.  I like the minimalist ones, but always end up adding more stuff that I think I need, cluttering it up again.

So until next time, I'll leave you with a PUG story:

I see someone forming a group for Onyxia 10, and since I have never been on E (paladin), I whispered that I could tank it (my ret gear is so-so with two blue trinkets, while I've been tanking ICC 10 for weeks).  We form up, get there, buff up (four paladins in the raid, I'm the only one with PallyPower, and of course two different paladins decide that they should be buffing Might, leaving no one buffed with Wisdom) and I get ready to start pulling the first trash mob.  The other tank is right next to me.  The first mob and second mob are both coming towards us, so no problem - I move to pull them both and face them away from the raid, figuring the other tank would grab the second one off of me and stand with me.

Wishful thinking, of course - he does pull the second mob off of me, but he does not turn that mob around.  Four raid members get cleaved almost instantly.  He dies shortly after, since two were healers (what the healers were doing right up on the tanks, I have no clue.)  "WTF?  Why did you pull both?" asks one healer.  I calmly explain that both tanks were ready, one tank per mob.  "That's not how it works," the healer says.  "Only pull one at a time." 

"Well, since it's too much to handle for the healers for one tank to hold one mob each, I'll do it that way this time," I say as we're running back.  We rebuff, again with no Wisdom, and off we go.

Two mobs coming.  I hold back.  Other tank rushes forward.  Pulls the first mob, does not turn it around.  "Pull it back," order the raid leader.  "Out of the way, I'll pull him back here, everyone move back," I say, and taunt the mob.  No one moves.  People get cleaved.  The second tank still stands there, doesn't move, body pulls the second mob.  Wipe.

"You tanks suck," says the healer, and drops the group.  I follow suit without saying anything.  It's ONYXIA, not ICC.  It's not hard mode.  Two wipes on the first trash mob, and I look bad because of the other tank. 

To say the least, I was not happy.