I took the day off from work.

My head has really been aching lately, the base of the neck spasms that tell me the stress at work is getting up there. It’s our 4th of July weekend in the States, we get Friday off from work as a paid holiday, so I decided to stretch it into a four day weekend.

Spent most of the morning rearranging and cleaning the furniture, setting up the entertainment center in the family room a different way.

I came across my Playstation that I bought just to play Final Fantasy Tactics on when the PS2 was in use.

A little lightbulb went off… I grabbed my stack of PS1 games, dusted off Spyro the Dragon, and spent the next couple hours teaching Alex how to play. He’s in there right now, happily flaming sheep. :)

So over lunch, chatting with Cassie over what to do, she’s been looking up reviews on dishwashers since our’s is dying from the pump (I think our hard water has caused long term damage), and she asks what my plans are.

I tell her that seeing Jardal working on prepping Bear gear at 80 has inspired me to write a new Bear gear post.

I outline my plans; I’ll have a simple breakdown, the best in slot for people who are leveling 70 to 80, consisting of regular instance rewards, crafted, quest rewards and such that will carry them into Heroics. A second section for those newly dinged 80 that they can seek, again best in slot from crafted, Heroic drops, Emblem rewards, Argent Tournament rewards and 10 man easy raids like Obsidian Sanctum and VoA, the items that will carry a person directly into Naxx 10 safely.

Finally, a section of best in slot, taking into account Emblem rewards, crafted, Naxx 10 and 25 drops, etc that will prepare one for walking into Ulduar.

Cassie looks at me, and says, “And the first five comments you will get will be someone that disagrees with one of your choices, someone that says you overlooked something, someone that links to someone else’s blog that they say did it better, someone that asks why they should listen to a noob that isn’t raiding Ulduar, and finally someone who will ask ‘who still raids Naxx lol’.”

I looked at her for a few moments, formulating a response.

She looked back at me.

Finally, she said “You are going to spend hours doing this, and you know I’m right.”

So I did what any red blooded American blogger would do.

I blogged about it.

Hi folks!

This is the Big Bear, letting you know that I will be one of the guests on the Twisted Nether Live Roundtable chat going on this very Friday!

I’ve taken part in this once before, and had a wonderful time.

If you haven’t attended one before, perhaps because of the ridiculous late hour they normally run (Fimlys is a renowned night owl), I heartily encourage you to check it out.

It’s fun. On the left side of the interface will be the live audio feed (nope, no vidcameras, no naked dancing bears) and on the right side of the screen is the live chatroom that you’ll be able to log into and type chat in, and ask questions, heckle the speakers LIVE, and generally act as the most amazing distraction to a podcast in all of history.

Last time, I spent so much time reading the text conversations and responding that I didn’t know what the heck we were supposed to be talking about.

Even better, if you manage to get us to screw up on our talking thingie, it gets recorded and goes live!

Okay, you shouldn’t aspire to that particular accomplishment.

But if you do have serious questions on class balance, patch 3.2, playing the game, any sorts of things, here is your opportunity to bring it, because it’s not just me, there are going to be all sorts of cool folks there.

Some of them might just be articulate, too!

Depending on whether the Twisted Nether blog is blocked at your work, I’ll post their announcement here in it’s entirety.

I hope I’ll see you there!

From the Twisted Nether; 

NOTICE! Special time and day this week. This FRIDAY afternoon we’ll have a special group of Wow Community Mavens and we’ll be chatting about class balance, patch 3.2 and whatever else comes up. Join the fun in our live chat room!

• When is it?: This Euro-friendly show is scheduled for Friday, July 3rd at noon PST (3:00 pm EST). Not sure what time that is for you? Use this handy-dandy time converter!
• Where do I go? To participate on the live show, you will need to go to the TNB Live Show page to connect with the stream. See, totally easy. If you are having issues then go to the Ustream page.
• Some general ground rules:
  1. Be nice. If you say very inappropriate things be aware you will be kicked from the room. We are doing this to have a great time, come with a beer, come during a raid, come how you wish, just don’t come to cause trouble.
  2. You may ask questions to the participants during the show, but we reserve the right to use them if and when we can. I will be monitoring the chat room and if I can I will use the comments during the show. We love that you are with us, but I will have to weave them in. Even if it isn’t asked, we all appreciate your questions

Outside of that, we will love to have you join us and partake in an enlightening discussion that is sure to follow! Hope to see you there!

My guildies are like cockroaches, really…

Stomp on them all you want, poison them, blast them, blow them up, and omigod, they’re still alive to take more abuse.

Case in point.

Last night, ‘quick’ raid into Naxxramas. Hours and hours later, we finish the Construct wing.

We set this raid up with the very scientific process of logging in, and asking “Anybody up for a 10 person raid?”.

As people gradually joined, some of the folks in the raid would ask, ‘So what are we doing?”

The Bear’s response; “I’ll tell you when we got a group.”

Once we got a group, I could see what the composition was going to be… and I figured we could take on a quick wing of Naxx, or an Obsidian Sanctum/VoA double play.

Or an old school raid, ’tis true.

I gave them the choice, and the majority (okay, all but one) voted for a wing of Naxx… and I suggested we do the Heigan dance.

You have to understand, this was for pure comedic gold.

See, I wasn’t going to be tanking. I was going to be healing. So I was going to have a beautiful view of the group… and I could video the whole thing.

Why would I love to do this now?

Because of our main tank… Ratshag, on his Paladin powerhouse, Kinnavieve.

That’s right, Ratters was main tank for the run, with Graimerin as his tanky buddy. And when I suggested Heigan, the panic in his voice sent shivers of blogging thrills down my spine.

Oooh, this was gonna be good!

Sadly, my kind heart was convinced that Heigan might not be a ‘kind’ choice on our tanks. Especially not with FRAPS running, kek.

Fine, let’s got do Abomination/Construct and have fun with the doggie.

You know who our tanks were… what you don’t know is the composition of our healing lineup.

Yes, I was one of our three healers. And Cassie was one as well.

That’s right, Cassie and Wind, side by side, frantically healing a raid in Naxx.

Now do you understand what I mean when I describe my guildies as poor, long suffering, heavily abused victims?

We woulda won too, if it wasn’t for that meddling tree!

Scooby doobie doo!

Oh, sorry.

Um, we would have made the guild suffer far worse if it wasn’t for having one other healer that was actually well skilled and experienced. 

I’ll not call her out by name THIS time, since she may not be used to the way I just blab everything about everyone here…  

but I will say she is the fiancé of a very famous blogging personality. And she’s hilarious in chat, it was a lot of fun to meet her.

No, no I won’t say which blogger. Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. And at this point, there are so many bloggers in the guild that guessing who is who will just drive ya nuts. 

Okay, I’ll give you a hint.

She’s not fiancéd to Lady Jess.

Oh yeah, Jess WAS there, though… but she wasn’t tanking, she was slashing and stabbing and beating up things with blunt objects on her deadly stealthy Rogue.

Wouldn’t that have been awesome? Jess tanking on her Paladin while Cassie and I kept her healed? Or not healed, as the case may be.

It was a wild ride, a few wipes, a lot of running around screaming and wailing and gnashing our teeth.

I learned a few things.

The first thing I learned was the frustration you have when shit falls apart and you’ve got no idea why, you just know that everyone’s health bars are dropping at once, too fast to do anything but watch people die.

As an accomplished tank, I can pretty much be damn sure I know exactly what everyone is doing at any given time. You’d be surprised how well I can stay on top of things.

As a new healer trying to do an unfamiliar job, I found it very difficult to follow what other people were doing. Healing during Grobbulus, for example, we wiped the first time, and I couldn’t tell why, or who, or what. I saw small slimes running loose, I saw expanding circles of gas cloud in the center, I knew things weren’t going well and everyone was dropping like flies… but I couldn’t pin down where we needed to improve.

On the second shot, the best I could do was describe in greater detail the boss fight, and everything went smooth as snot.

The second thing I noticed was that, as a tank, my responsibilities are clearly defined.

I pull, I hold aggro, I manuever mobs around the room, I grab up stragglers and I watch the area to ensure nobody is getting unwanted attention.

Sure, there are mobs that do AoE damage, and I try and arrange things so the group doesn’t suffer from it too bad by marking those mobs for death first, if possible.

As a healer, your responsiblity lies in keeping your healing assignments alive. And, oh yeah, also make sure you’re ready to heal everyone else if a healer dies early. And in the end, it’s on your ass if anyone anywhere dies, or the raid wipes, or whatever.

It’s no longer you dragging yourself and your mobs around… it’s you running your butt around trying to stay within range of all your assigned healing targets.

I did something last night I think I’ve never done before, because I was raid lead.

At the Thaddius stage of the raid, where the group splits into two teams, I moved the players around so team one was all in group one, and team two was all in group 2.

That way, all your healing assignments were in the same, small area, except for the tank that would get tossed around. Made it a lot simpler to heal party members when the tank was taken care of.

Never occured to me to do it before… and none of our healers have ever offered suggestions on how to make their life easier.

I think I can anticipate asking healing professionals to offer suggestions and advice on how tanks and raid leaders can make changes like that to ease the life of a raid healer.  

All things considered, Cassie and I had a stressful but fun time…

Can’t help but feel sorry for our guildies, though.

Hey Ratshag, next time it’s Heigan!

Dance, mutha*&()er, dance!

Nyuck nyuck nyuck!

Oh, and I had to go with the title of this post simply because after I thought of that horrendous title, the thought of saying it kept calling to me… “say it, say it!”

There are incoming changes to how Tier gear will be gained in the upcoming patch 3.2, and also… hold onto your hats, you will soon have the choice of extending your Raid ID on a saved raid one week past the normal reset.

First, the gear. 

With the new Argent Coliseum, there will be a new Tier of class armor sets, Tier 9. This set, according to news released by MMO Champion (I wish I could post a link right now), will be able to be purchased with a single type of token common among all equipment slots

The quote from MMO Champion;

The biggest change here is the introduction of a common token for all armor parts, you can buy the Head/Hands/Chest/Legs/Shoulders of your set with a single item. (Example: Regalia of the Grand Conqueror)

 
There is a second piece of news, as I said, that I don’t have the quote handy for; you’ll be able to choose to extend a raid ID one week past the normally scheduled reset, giving you one extra week on a saved raid to work further on clearing.

I read all that this morning, and then rushed off to work.

It seems to me like, in the world of WoW, a pair of very important changes, and I wanted to think about it for a bit before saying anything here.

First, let me say that from the sounds of things, and going by past patch history, the existing Tier items will not be changed to work on the new system. I certainly may be wrong (and I love reading comments from people in the archives that see just how wrong I can be on predicting things), but I think that when the change to Tier items comes, it will only affect Tier 9 Argent Coliseum drops.

If you ain’t in Argent Coliseum, it won’t affect you. I find that sad, personally.

The way it works now, of course, is that each boss of a raid has a set loot list, and those that can drop Tier generally always drop the same equipment slot of Tier, but for varying classes.

Because this is a blog, I will now expand on what everyone already knows. There are a handful of exceptions. Vault of Archavon bosses, of course, drop Tier and PvP epics, but they aren’t tokens. They are set for a class, AND a spec, and are random across a few choices. (personal bet made)

Gluth in Naxxramas can drop Tier tokens, and which equipment slots they work with are a bit random. You can get Tier from any one of the other regular Naxx bosses; Leggings, Chest, or Shoulders. The Helm is from a non-regular Naxx boss, Kel’thuzad, and the Glove token comes from Obsidian Sanctum. So only regular Naxx bosses apply to his loot list. Still, for someone clearing a single Naxx wing, doing Abomination gives you two shots at Tier.

Moving on.

In Argent Coliseum, if you had a Tier Token for your class drop, and you looted it, you could turn it in for the Tier piece that goes in your equipment slot of choice.

Got Legs and Chest, and want the Shoulder upgrade next? Boom! Win a Token from any boss that drops one and turn it in for your shoulders.

I love it. Plain and simple.

First obvious question; will such a system get gamed?

Of course it will!

People will identify the easiest boss to kill, and will make damn sure, like clockwork, that if they do nothing else that week, they’ll down that boss and get someone a Tier piece.

That’s fine with me. It’s not exactly cheating to get together and do a raid. If you beat the boss, you deserve the loot, at least in my little furry universe.

The guilds that progress further, will get more Tokens.

At least in this system, the Tokens that drop will always have a far higher likelihood of being useful for someone in the raid.

In the short term, some raids may suffer some stress. After all, there will no longer be a boss where someone can say, “Hey, the two Druids, the Rogue and the Death Knight already have the shoulders. If the token drops, it’s MINE! After 5 months of waiting, finally it’s MINE! All MINE!!! Muahahahah!”

Nope! Sorry! /denied

My advice? If you’re in a raiding guild, act now to plan for this. Discuss it. Please.

Now, this is a change that will encourage people to push forward into new content. Every Tier drop from even the first boss of Argent Coliseum has the potential to be a new Tier piece, no matter what you’ve got in your set. Ys, I think this will serve to encourage more new raiding.

At the same time, there will be the higher level Emblem drops from old content. Those guilds that aren’t up to Argent Coliseum will have ample reason to do the older content with vigor, and the drops they get will help build them up to the point where maybe they CAN tackle Ulduar.

On top of this, you add the option of extending a raid ID one week past normal reset.

Now that’s going to add an interesting (even evil) new dimension to gaming!

You get to choose!

Go for a clear of the bosses you CAN do in one week, and then do it again the next week to keep gear flowing in… OR spend an extra week trying to strive to see new content, achieve new drops or accomplishments you’ve never seen before building on your current success, and risk NO new drops at all for a week?

Oooh, how evil. I freaking LOVE it!

Especially when the new Argent Coliseum will reward people with Tier drops, and if you extend your raid ID a week in Argent Coliseum and get no progress, you’re out that Tier drop the second week.

For my casual guild, it’s actually going to be quite cool.

We’re quite able to clear all of Naxxramas, we just have a hard time justifying so much raid schedule in one week. It’s summer, after all.

At the same time, you just KNOW people would love to get some Tier helms, etc.

So for a guild like ours, where a full clear even over two weeks would be far more fun than doing two or three wings each week, heck… sign me up!

I like it. It’s quite cool.

What do you crazy people think?

We now interrupt the writer’s insane giggling over the upcoming Engineering Changes (Dalaran based Engineer-only Auction House! Whee!) to bring you this late breaking announcement from MMO Champion;

MMO Champion has posted a nice blue comment from Nethaera, and it goes something like this -

We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

Ummm….

I think I need to go and change my fur.