Guest Post: EZ WoW– Solutions for the E-Peen Generation

This rebuttal is brought to you by Morrigahn of Caer Morrighan

There’s been some discussion about WoW being too easy recently.  It started with a discussion of how the change in the difficulty has affected social relations on World of Matticus.  This was followed by an excellent post at the Pink Pigtail Inn which I must say I agree with 100%.  Then it spread across the blogosphere like wildfire and was picked up by the likes of Casual Hardcore and  Tobold.

This is my contribution to the debate.  Instead of talking about the problem I’m suggesting a solution.  Its not a practical solution.  Its more a ranting, slightly insane type of solution.

Let me tell you whats really behind the ‘too easy’ and ‘welfare epics’ complaints.

Once upon a time, only a very few people had epic gear because only a very few people could raid.  This allowed them to feel better than everyone else.  Their gear was the visible evidence of their success.  They could walk around their relevant city, confident that no one looked better than them.  This rewarded them for their lack of social life.  They were the ‘elites’.  Everyone else was a ‘pleb’.

Fact 1: players who whine normally weren’t a part of this elite.  They resent the fact that they won’t ever get the chance to lord it over their fellow players based on having cool looking gear.

Solution 1: make gear more user definable.  Then elites can prance around in ridiculous looking gear and think they are better while plebs get a good laugh instead of having to listen to them whine.

Fact 2: players who think that raids and gear should be limited to a select few are quite happy to be gaining whilst others pay for them to do so.

Solution 2: make raids ridiculously hard but make players pay extra to access them, whilst us plebs pay less since we can’t access them since we have jobs/lives/our sanity.  So if for every 10 players, 9 are plebs then those 9 players can pay say $10/£6 a month.  Raiding is about 1/3 of the game content so plebs pay 1/3 less.  That means that the $45/£27 a month that the plebs were paying should all now be paid by the elite.  The elite can be elite, but they have to pay $60/£36 a month to do so.  Of course since the elites have no jobs they can’t afford to do this.  Which means even less elites.  Which means, to cover the cost of raid development, the fee would have to be higher.  It also means you brought your epics.  But you can strut around and look cool if that’s what you really want.

Fact 3: players who complain that content is not worth doing because world top 5 guilds have already completed it need a quicker way to get the hell out of my WoW.

Solution 3: implement software that recognises these key phrases so that when someone makes a statement like this an option box pops up in WoW allowing them to choose to end their subscription immediately.  In fact, give them a $50 bonus for leaving.  That money will easily be made back by the saved time on the forums not answering their posts.  Plebs would be happy to increase their subscription by the 0.50c/30p it would cost to cover this for the reward of not having to listen to this complaint ever again.

Fact 4: players who like to be judged based on their gear don’t like it when new gear comes along to replace it.  This makes them feel that all their work has been a complete waste of time.

Solution 4: allow gear to scale with epeen.  Then the plebs will be able to spot the enormous d***** a mile off and avoid them.  This would be an addition to Solution 1.

Fact 5: players who want to be better than everyone else don’t want to play in a cooperative environment.

Solution 5: make a whole new version of WoW that doesn’t involve cooperative play but can be played competitively only.  Call it … Starcraft?  In order to make up for the lost revenue from Solution 3, players could be directed to this game instead.

I am a pleb and proud of it.  I call upon plebs everywhere to rise up and defend their right to have epic gear and participate in raids they are paying for the development of.  Yes, entry level raid content is easier than it was, but this is our right as paying players!  No the game is not easier because most players still have never even seen Algalon yet, and hes the end boss of the previous tier!  No they are not welfare epics because every player who has an epic item has to suffer through the complaints of the epeen brigade and that is payment enough!

Disclaimer: This was a political broadcast brought to you by Morrighan, head of the Plebs for Epix party.  Morrighan accepts that not all vanilla raiders are epeens.  Not all people who complain about the game being easy or welfare epics are epeens.  Morrighan has a lot of friends who were both vanilla raiders and don’t like how easy epics are to get and is not calling them epeens.  She’s just fed up with listening to complaints about WoW being too easy from people who can’t even manage Heroic Azjol Nerub!

Jov sez: Search Engine Fail (part 2)

I know, you guys are probably thinking I’m such a follower.  After all, Seri did this for Christmas.  But it was MY idea that she stole (like every other good idea she has…) so I feel absolutely zero guilt in stealing it back.  Besides, some of these are really full of wtf’ery, and need to be shared.

• funny good morning – Obviously you guys have never seen us in the morning.  It’s not particularly funny, unless you think laughing AT us before we’ve had our respective early-morning wake-up beverages is a wise decision with an eye toward future life expectancy.  Let’s just say we’re not morning people and if you don’t want us turning our guns on you, leave it at that.
• wotlk heroic keys – That information will cost you.  Send 50,000 gold to Joveta @ Scarlet Crusade US and I’ll send you all the heroic keys for this expansion.  *cough*  No, really, there aren’t any.
• wotlk leveling as disc – Perfectly viable, though doing it as holy is better.  Check out my How2Priest series for more detailed information.  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• blood elf priest – Well, I suppose you’ve come to the right place.  We’ve both got blood elf priests.  There’s a picture of blood elf priests in the header of our site.  We talk about priests throughout the course of this blog.  I’d say that actually might have come to the right place.
• warsong offensive quartermaster – There isn’t one, really.  Warsong Offensive is serviced by the Horde Expedition, which is the meta-faction.  The quartermaster is in Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra.  The chick is named Gara Skullcrush (pretty awesome orc name, if I do say so myself).  She’s on the second floor.  If you take the elevator down from the flightpath, she’ll be right in front of you where you get off.
• shadow priest spell rotation wotlk – Not that kind of blog.  But short answer: VT > SWP > DP > MB > SWD > MF per MaxDPS.com.
• fissure – This one is Seri’s fault.  You want her void zone post here.  If you’re looking for something else, gtfo this blog.
• illidan – I’m not entirely certain what’s up with this one.  This is the most consistent hit that  comes here (and has been one of the top searches every week since we started this blog) that doesn’t have “snarkcraft” in the search phrase anywhere.  He’s a fun fight, and an interesting character lore-wise…  but he’s not a contributor to this blog.

I hope that cleared some stuff up, when it didn’t just totally muddy the waters even more.  Apologies for the sudden WoS downtime last week.  We were both laid up sick (I had food poisoning, she had some weird manbirdpig flu or something.)

And finally a personal note:  Axiom is Recruiting! I know there are a lot of guilds out there looking to add members for Ulduar, but if you’re Horde, in a US CST-friendly timezone, and shopping for a guild, you should definitely check us out.  (And while you’re at it, check out the guildie blogs listed to the right in our blog roll, just so you know what you’re getting into.)  Current needs are 1 druid of each type (trees, bears, and boomchicken, oh my!), a holy pally, a holy priest (*nudge nudge*), and 3 ranged DPS of any type.  You can check out our official recruitment post for more information on times, loot, progression, etc., or just mosey on over to our forums to apply.

Seri sez: I <3 Penance – A rebuttal.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve repeated that to myself a lot in the last few weeks… a mantra of sorts.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It is our differing opinions and points of view that make for interesting blogging.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Without challenging the status quo, there is no progress.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion… but if it’s asinine and it’s about Priests you can expect to hear from me.

A few weeks ago, a bright-eyed Discipline priest named Wistoovern stepped through World of Matticus‘ revolving guest-poster door with what he felt was a revolutionary idea clutched tightly in his hands. Because I had already read his crackpot theory over on PlusHeal, tried to communicate to him the error of his ways and been shrugged off… I didn’t read the whole thing. I was surprised that Matticus gave him a guest post spot for the topic, but I know that it generated a lot of discussion even though Matticus did take some heat for putting it out there.

Wistoovern proposes in his guest post that Penance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that it is possible to be a perfectly viable Discipline Priest without it.

Ok, I’ll grant him that it would be possible to be a viable Discipline healer without Penance.

My counter-argument: Why the hell would I want to do that?

Penance is a great spell. Why?

• It only costs one talent point. – Where else would you propose to put that talent point, if not in Penance? Is there something vital I’m overlooking that you just don’t have enough talent points for? Go ahead, look. I’ll wait. Better yet, just listen to me: There isn’t. You’re already sinking 50+ points into Discipline to be a viable Discipline healer, so why not invest in Penance? And don’t give me that ‘CoH was useless once upon a time’ crap, because this isn’t the same. Penance is far from useless. If you don’t believe me, keep reading.
• It heals for about as much as a max rank Greater Heal for a fraction of the mana cost. – Rank 9 Greater Heal = 39% Base Mana for 3950-4950 healing. Rank 4 Penance = 16% Base Mana for 3 pulses of 1484-1676 healing over 2 seconds. Need I say more?
• The first pulse is instant. – Even if you have to step out of the cast, your target still gets nearly 2k healing instantly. This is comparable to a max rank Flash Heal but cheaper. (16% vs 18% base mana)
• Each pulse can crit. – Got Divine Aegis? Inspiration? Penance provides three chances to proc them per cast, rather than 1. I’m not a gambling woman, but I like those odds.
• Re-stacks Grace quickly and efficiently. – If you’re tank healing, and as a Disc priest you should be, keeping Grace up is something you want to do. Penance is a great way to quickly stack Grace to 3 if it drops off.

Now, it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t also discuss the cons of Penance:

• 10 second cooldown. – Yes, Penance has a 10 second cooldown. If it didn’t, it would probably be crazily overpowered. Is there a chance that it might be on cooldown when you need it most? Sure. Sounds like a good time for Pain Suppression IMO. We have a lot of tools at our disposal, this is just one of them. (Also, it’s worth noting that the Penance cooldown is reduced to 8 seconds with 2/2 Aspiration, which any smart Disc priest has.)
• Facing. – This ‘con’ is irrelevant as of patch 3.0.8, but it used to be that you had to be facing your target to use Penance. This no longer applies, but it did when Wistoovern wrote his guest post so I thought it only fair to mention it.
• Overhealing. – Yes, Penance can overheal. All healing spells can. I don’t believe this one is any more prone to it than any other.
• Channeled. – Penance is a 2 second cast channeled spell. If your casting is interrupted, your target won’t get the full benefit of the spell. However, they would have received at least the first if not second pulse whereas with Flash/Greater Heal they would not receive anything until you eventually finish casting.
• CC breaking. – If you routinely keep your shackle target as your target and heal with mouseover macros or Healbot, you could break your own cc with Penance. Um… l2focustarget.
• Accidental pulls. – Ok, seriously… how much personal stupidity do we have to put in the ‘con’ column? Anyone can accidentally pull a mob with an offensive ability; this isn’t unique to Penance. Hell, one of our mages Blinked into Sartharion the other night and we all got a good laugh out of it while we were bolting for the exit.

To repeat: Penance is a great spell. It’s far from the only spell in your arsenal, but arguing that you don’t really need it is sort of like saying that you don’t need an umbrella in the rain. Is standing in the rain without an umbrella fatal? No, but you’ll end up pretty wet.

Still, I think the most disappointing thing in this whole debacle is that for all the discussion and debate that Wistoovern’s post sparked in comments he didn’t seem to participate in any of it. If you’re going to put yourself out there, airing a poorly-reasoned opinion in a blog with hundreds of subscribers, you’d better be willing/able to defend it. I content myself with the knowledge that he may have seen the error of his ways; the last time I checked he actually had specced into Penance. Irony, thou art sweet.

Seri sez: In Defense of Holy Glitter

Why I continue to spec into Holy Nova (aka Holy Glitter, lolnova, etc.):

1. It really annoys Jov.

2. There is no #2.