Flying and Seeing the World!
Well, I AM seeing something.

So I read “World of Warcraft Flying Mounts and Warlords of Draenor,” and it got me thinking about why I LOVE FLYING.  This post contains the reasons why I would get kinda cranky with another 100% flightless island!

1. Death Prevention
For a variety of reasons, I am not always able to attend to the game while logged on, and must occasionally AFK here and there.  In old content that my character vastly outlevels, this is usually not an issue.  In current content that my character must actually expend effort to survive in, stepping away from the computer for a couple minutes means that while I might save what’s in the oven, I run a very good chance of coming back to a corpse.

In most zones, safe places to stop for a breather are either far from your current questing location, or separated from you by a large number of mobs that you do not have time to fight through.  Going AFK where you stand on the ground is probably a bad idea, even if you are in a corner or hiding in some bushes – mobs don’t give a crap about that, and any pat that gets within range will come smack you down before you get back.  Flying offers a quick solution to this dilemma by enabling you to ascend to the skies (that is, if there aren’t MORE mobs up there, like at Lion’s Landing) while you attend to matters in the physical realm.

Although Blizzard (supposedly) plans on doing away with repair costs in Warlords of Draenor, that time has not yet come.  So by preventing one’s death, one also saves gold!  You also save time, since you don’t have to run back to your body from wherever the closest graveyard is (which may not be all that close or convenient).

Finally, if you are someone like me, you have both Alliance and Horde alts and sometimes find yourself going to the wrong Shrine or the wrong outpost in some zone.  Being on a flying mount is your only chance of getting the hell out of Dodge before ninety million NPCs and possibly players squish you into itty bitty pieces for your mistake.

2. Freaking Mountains
They’re everywhere, and a non-fatal route from one zone into another through them is not always immediately apparent.  I’ve tried running on foot from Stormwind to Hillsbrad before, since I wanted to tame a pet in that zone.  Alas!  I couldn’t use a flight path, since the alt in question had not been anywhere near that zone before.  Though many of my other characters have, Blizzard does not allow the flight path “knowledge” to go from one to the other these days.  The Cataclysm made passing between some zones impossible (hello giant abyss of doom), and going around is not an option thanks to More Freaking Mountains.  To get from Loch Modan to the Wetlands, I literally wound up jumping to my death down the busted up dam/dried up waterfall.

My Other Options Were Limited
Severely so, actually.

I was determined to do it, and not particularly pissed off one way or the other about the whole thing – but this is not what I would call an enjoyable travel experience, nor one I’d want to repeat regularly because flying mounts were prohibited.

3. Flight Path Inefficiency
Do you ever feel like flight paths are inspired by airlines, or some sort of connect-the-dot game drawn by a madman?

WTB Direct Flight
Flight paths, the airlines of Azeroth.

Seriously, even with the guild buff, I don’t have time for that crap.

4. Annoyance Prevention
People on ground mounts in flightless zones annoy me.  In their desire to turn in this quest or that one, or get to a place where they won’t be killed by a mob that just happens to spawn while they are AFK, they train a kajillion things behind them.  In the past, it seemed like mobs would always reset, ignoring people who circumstance placed nearby.  Unfortunately, in recent locations like the Isle of Thunder … well, they don’t reset so much as they pick another convenient target who just happened to be there, and it freaking sucks to be that target.

I like people more when they don’t have to do that in order to get from Point A to Point B.

I also like it more when I don’t have to do that in order to turn in.  I may have fought my way to the completion of the quest, yes, but I have almost no intention of fighting all the way back out to the quest giver again.  It takes too much time.

I would accept no flight if and only if we had something like that awesome saurok getup, which made the mobs friendly to you and which JUMPED LIKE MAGIC.

5. Annoyance is NOT a Sufficient Motivator for Many, and “Exploration” Doesn’t Mean You’ll Find What You Need
I don’t know about you, but if the cost of something is more than I perceive its worth to be, I am quite likely to just not do it.  If it’s too annoying to get to somewhere, I’m not going to begrudgingly go there and then decide I like it – I’m just going to not go there in the first place.

When it comes to exploration not helping you find what you need, take my shaman as an example.  She is not the first or even one of the first of my nine alts who have leveled through Pandaria.  She’s a jewelcrafter, but I didn’t even know the fancy jewelcrafting trainer in Jade Forest existed, much less that I needed to visit her in order to learn special recipes.  How did I find out?  It certainly wasn’t exploration or questing!  (Note: I do have Loremaster of Pandaria under my belt, so it’s not like I totally skipped the zone.)  No, Mr. Robot told me I needed to make specific type of gem for my gear, but I didn’t know how to cut it.  I queried my guildmates, who told me I could learn it at a trainer.  I went to the trainer I had always visited (in Orgrimmar), and discovered no such recipe there.  I then proceeded to Google the cut in question, at which point I finally learned there was a panda out in the middle of relative nowhere in the Jade Forest who had it.

Guess what?  I flew there.

6. Flying is a Reward I’ve Earned by Leveling and Paid For With Precious, Precious Gold
So stop taking it away from me, dammit.

For me, fast flying is a necessity.  I derp around the world for a variety of reasons, sometimes mining to pass the time while I am in a queue, and sometimes to procure mats for an alt’s low profession.  Quite often I’m flying to an old school dungeon or raid run for transmog purposes.  While I very rarely have the gold available to train the higher levels of flying at the moment an alt is first able to learn them, I will hoard my gold until I can finally get one level of flying, with maybe 100g left over for repairs.

I don’t always do dailies, and sometimes I go for days without doing quests on the same character, content leveling some other alt.  I don’t play the Auction House at all, and I usually save the mats I acquire for my own use instead of selling them.  While I can’t avoid repairs, I will stop buying what I consider “vanity” items, like minor glyphs or green quality armor I think would look good on an alt.  Sometimes I have stopped buying health/mana potions altogether, instead only using what I can make.  Generally, it will take about two weeks (sometimes a little more, rarely a little less these days) before I can afford one of the 4k flying skills.

Ignoring the the time and effort required to level any alt, let’s take a look at the costs involved in learning how to fly as fast as possible anywhere you possibly can.  Once I have finally maxed out flying on a character, I have spent (assuming I have the reputation discount) the following:

Basic Flying: 200g
(Level 60, enables you to fly in the first place, but is 100% useless without the Flight Master’s License)

Flight Master’s License: 250g
(Requires Level 60, allows you to fly in most zones, meaning it’s pretty much required)

Cold Weather Flying: 400g
(Allows you to fly in Northrend only)

Artisan Riding: 4,000g
(Requires Level 70, which makes you slightly less slow)

Fancypants Superfast Master Flying: 4,000g
(Requires Level 80, and currently the fastest flying speed)

Wisdom of the Four Winds: 2,000g
(Requires Level 90, allows flight in Pandaria)

That’s a sum of 10,850g!

Considering that:

1. None of my characters qualifies as “rich,”
2. I have 9 level 90s, a mix of Horde and Alliance
3. I have, over time, paid for max flying on all nine,
4. I already have the Explorer achievement,
5. I am about 100 quests shy of “the Seeker” achievement,
6. I already travel to multiple continents/worlds/expacs in search of transmog, and thus could be said to be exploring the world regularly,

… anybody telling me I should mother trucking ride a ground mount to see the world can, quite frankly, go chew on toothpicks.  FLYING MOUNTS FOREVER!!

What Happens When It Rots?
Then again, that’s probably how they get it down from there.

“Surestrike Secret” Set

Class: Hunter (Engineer required for goggles)

H: Surestrike Goggles v2.0 | S: Shoulderpads of the Secret Arts | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Ruthless Gladiator’s Chain Armor | Wa: Ruthless Gladiator’s Links of Cruelty | L: Leggings of the Insatiable
G: Gossamer-Stained Grips | Wr: Not shown | B: Njord Boots

Bow: Brutal Gladiator’s Longbow

Status: Finished

Thoughts: Thermalix definitely needed a new getup.  Something in black, maybe, something kinda ninja-y but with a bit of “pow” to it – not the plain ol’ Dark Ranger look.  It needed to be a bit goblinish, and most importantly, it needed to be pretty dang easy to get.  She could make the goggles and already had the shoulders, pants and boots.  Thermalix traded her Justice in for Honor, which is a splendid arrangement because 1.) I suck at PvP, and 2.) ogod all the Justice why do I have so much of it?

But let us pause here to consider an often overlooked promised update for Warlords of Derpnor:

“Hunters were using transmog to avoid hearing gun sounds. [...] Hunters will be getting updated weapon sounds in WoD.”

Whoa, dude, how did they KNOW that I did that?  Wait just a second, other people do it too!?  I’M NOT ALONE!?

Guess it’s a good thing I saved those cool guns, then!  I just can’t use ‘em yet because sounds.

My problems with rogue are pretty simple and also pretty much unfixable.  Mostly, I just suck at it, and what I personally consider to be a good rogue rotation (stealth, pickpocket, open box gleefully, rinse, repeat) is not something the greater rogue community or WoW designers agree with.  They seem to want me to engage in combat and crap, but I JUST WANT THE GOLD, GAWD.

SCREW YOUR STANDARDS
I jump how high I want!

Cav and Goa have both leveled rogues and have tried to help me in the past, but rogue is not really their true calling.  Cav is the Eternal Warrior, for although he might play other classes from time to time, he always, always comes back to his one true love.  Goa would be the same, if he didn’t have that alt-itis problem.  Even so, he rocks Warrior.  Beating crap up is what they DO.

Once they got wind that I was debating deleting my rogue altogether, the substance of our conversations changed a bit, something like: MAKE A WARRIOR.  YOU’LL LIKE WARRIOR.  REALLY.  YOU’RE GONNA MAKE A WARRIOR RIGHT?  HOW ABOUT A SPACE GOAT WARRIOR?  YAY SPACEGOATS.  WHAT, TROLL?  WELL, THE ANIMATIONS SUCK BUT FEMALE TROLL WARRIORS ARE RARE.  AS LONG AS IT’S A WARRIOR, THAT’S THE IMPORTANT PART.  YOU SHOULD GO ARMS.  YOU’LL LIKE ARMS.  HAVE YOU MADE THAT WARRIOR YET?  PROT’S OP UNTIL 40.  DID I TELL YOU THAT ALREADY?  SHIELD SLAM MAKES GROWN MEN CRY IN PVP.  WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR SPELL REFLECT BEECHES HAHAHA WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR BAM! I hadn’t even deleted the rogue yet!

So yeah, they wore me down.  Cav promised to make a rogue to level with me (seems ironic, somehow), but refused to go goblin (too short), so we settled on the only race we both like: Forsaken.  My warrior is Arms, even though the DPS queue will take forever.

This Look Is Tragic
MOG ME NOW, PLEASE

Oh, c’mon now, it’s not that bad.  The looms are “classic!”  Stop hiding your face.

Well, I Guess
Uh, on second thought …

Oh.  Well.  Y’know, since he’s not exactly leveling the rogue and a guildmate wants to make a goblin, I think I’m going to make a goblin too …

PIXELBY PRESENT YEAH
I like how the goblin /flex is like, three times longer than anybody else’s.

PIXELBY REPORTING FOR DUTY

Cav Does What He Wants
Screw your concept of warrior tanks!

Anyway, I’ve heard people say that things are kinda stinky for warriors, and that people think warrior tanks are kinda stinky too.  I can’t speak about warrior end game or raiding, so here’s my theory as to why there might not be many low level warrior tanks: it really sucks at low levels.  So you DPS instead, and then after awhile, that’s exactly what you get used to.

I had a suspicion that lowbie warrior tanking would be a big bad pile of awful, because I did a bit of it back in Cata.  I hoped that maybe it changed with all the patches since, but no – I did one dungeon (Deadmines), and I ran screaming.

Some of it was old hat sorta stuff, the kind I just didn’t feel like dealing with for 90 levels.  The hunter was pulling some of the things.  The healer was pulling the rest of the things!  There was no point to telling them to stop, since I’d never see them again and the next party would just be more of the same.

But those old hat problems contributed to the lowbie warrior tank problems.  I could not Charge any of the things once they got pulled because THEY WERE TOO CLOSE, and if I tried to charge before they got pulled by other (ranged) people, THEY WERE TOO FAR.  Charge has a cooldown too, of course.

Perhaps worse, you don’t have any sort of AoE when you start, so you end up with mobs all over the damn place, and I couldn’t get them back.  Warrior tanks don’t get their first multiple-target thing (Thunder Clap) until level 20, by which time you’ve already felt like shooting yourself in the face for taking this up.  (WTB Avenger’s Shield, which hits three targets and which Protection Paladins get at level 10.  SUPER UNFAIR.)

Tab targeting in Deadmines is a crapshoot because you’ll often tab target totally useless explosive barrels halfway down the hall.  (Actually, tab targeting in general is a crapshoot because you’ll often select the mob standing a bazillion feet away that hasn’t aggroed instead of the mob that happens to be RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, trying to kill you.)  As a result, trying to switch targets to Taunt was totally futile because by the time I selected the RIGHT target attacking the healer, the thing was already dead.  After while I stopped bothering, under the “you yank it, you tank it” philosophy.  HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING INTO.

What also made it difficult as a noob was how I couldn’t freely use what skills I had.  Not only did I have to deal with cooldowns, I had to deal with generating Rage first instead of consuming something already available like mana, which is a New Thing for me as a tank.  (p.s., not Charging means 20 less Rage right off the bat!)  Rage regeneration in Defensive stance felt too slow to keep up with all the chaos of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE.  Screw that.  Seriously, man, I’m not touching that with a 20 foot pole that’s got a skunk tied to the end of it.  Maybe in the future, tank-type warriors can start off with full rage or something.  You know, like they’re always angry, and the only way to make them less rage-faced is to let them beat the crap outta something.

NOBODY DESERVES GNOMEREGAN
Remember, friends don’t Gnomeregan friends.

p.s., So I deleting the rogue enabled me to rename Electrika to use the rogue’s much cuter name (Bombelina).   Sure, my blog tags and categories are confused as hell with all the renaming, but eh, who actually reads all the old crap anyway?

“Golden Harmony” Set

Class: Shaman

H: Not shown | S: Shoulderwraps of Celestial Harmony (flex) | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Golden Links of Restoration | Wa: Belt of the Ardent Marksman | L: Leggings of the Tireless Sentry
G: Rock-Giant’s Pinky Cover | Wr: Not shown | B: Amberpine Greaves

Dagger: Blood Weeper
Shield: Gizlock’s Hypertech Buckler

Status: Finished

Thoughts:  According to my scientific research, if armor sparkles, glows or moves, the coolness factor is increased exponentially.  I love this shaman tier.  Ok, so maybe not quite as much as I <3 the Firebird set from Vaults/HoF, but I still love it – the shoulders in particular.  They remind me of sparkly gyroscopes, and what could be better for a goblin!?  I dug out one of my favorite shields as well, Gizlock’s Hypertech Buckler.  Engineers can make a similar shield, I believe, but this one drops from Maraudon for those of us who can’t.  It rotates too!

Full disclosure: I should note that farming anything from Maraudon is kinda a pain in the tush due to the distance you must travel to get in/out of the instance.  I actually picked up this shield back when I was leveling.

“Darksong” Set

Class: Druid

H: Crown of Malorne | S: Conqueror’s Nightsong Spaulders | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Don Rodrigo’s Poncho | Wa: Sash of Musing | L: Brutal Gladiator’s Kodohide Legguards
G: Darkbrand Gloves | Wr: Not shown | B: Not shown trollolol

Staff: Bleak Scythe

Status: Finished

Thoughts: This would be my first attempt at creating a more darker, more deathly druid, one who has an outlook focused less on regrowth and more on the decay that often precedes it.

This outfit was only doable thanks to the assistance of guildmates and friends.  Because I can’t chicken (or cat), I had to ask for help getting through Kara and Hyjal in a timely fashion for the helm and chest.  Even if I could chicken, I still would have had to ask for their help when it came to the shoulders, since those are purchased with a token that only drops from Yoggies 25 man.  Clearly, when it comes to mogging, I always pick the easiest items to obtain.  /facepalm

Next up for Betheki, the druid fashionista – a dark green, trollish set.  The Zandalari may be old news, mon, but voodoo never goes out of style.

Virtually every level 90 alt I have is working on the legendary questline from Wrathion!  Sorta.  About 90% of them are still collecting sigils, because alts.  (Did you know that the internet has made “because x” a legit form of speech?)  Originally, I wasn’t too thrilled about the whole cloak concept and dawdled a good deal.  But ever since I learned that the legendary cloak gave you weird shiny wings, Bombelina’s been mostly serious about courting “Wrathie,” as she likes to call him (when she’s pretty sure he’s not listening).

Think Happy Thoughts
Which are not “why didn’t he let ME use the forge, Gawd!”

She finally derped around enough on the Isle of Thunder to get to Exalted status, and Wrathie-poo said that it was time to use the fancy Thunderforge!  Hooray for progress!  Bombelina almost complained because she was just there saving some scouts who were hanging around in their underwear, but she thought better of it and went with the flow.  Her only major issue with this part was the fact that Wrathies insisted on working the forge himself.  She wanted to do that, dang it, but I guess you can’t have it all when a dragon of dubious motives is involved.  Afterwards, she sat herself down by Nalak in hopes of finding a group of fellow late quest-doers.

But it’s a cold, cold world on the Isle of Thunder in patch 5.4, since it’s old content and all.  So after waiting for two minutes forever, she was (of course) still the only person standing around. It seemed her goal of weird shiny wings would be stymied by her patch procrastination, but lo!  All was not lost, for a guildmate volunteered to help her out.  This guildmate had a plan for Nalak.  It was a very good plan, mostly, except for the high probability of death.

See, the plan was something like this:

1. Bombelina will hurl the spear at Nalak
2. Noble Tankytype Guildmate will taunt him
3. Bombelina should run for her life, because there will be an add
4. This add is lonely, but it should never be hugged or comforted in any way – make the add die of unbearable loneliness
5. Oh also, try not to die or we do it all over again
6. Guildmate will try not to die too, even though Nalak is biting him
7. Ta-da, spear get

It worked, but …

WELP MY WORK HERE IS DONE
My guildmate’s too, by the look of it.

Oops.  This in turn led to a new header image, with Reggies portraying my long lost/ignored conscience.  You know, that thing with the morals that you sometimes listen to?  Yeah, that.

Then came the Titan Runestones.  I still run ToT LFR out of habit and on multiple alts, so I’m accustomed to hearing people moan constantly about the drop rate.  Me?  Well, yeah, they don’t drop as often as I’d like, but you gotta keep in mind, I’d like a 100% drop rate.  And anyway, I was so freaking far behind that getting the drops sooner vs. later really didn’t matter to me.

Wrathieboo is supposed to tell you about Important Plot Points after each one you pick up, but I only saw him pipe up a couple of times.  This is probably because when he DOES say something, it’s during that IMMEDIATE post boss phase when everybody is either complaining about getting all gold or ditching the LFR.  This causes chat spam of course, which in turn makes it seem like these Runestones are just another quest requirement thing and not much more.  SIGH.  We’re going to have to work on his timing.

Post-Fight Reality
Wrathie-baby, you can’t talk through things like this.

Speaking of poor timing (mine): Iron Qon probably thought I had it in for him last week, as I ended up killing him a total of FOUR TIMES in three days.  The first time, I’d totally forgotten about the server restart, and, well, the thing restarted after we offed him.  The second time, the queue to get in took too long, so after I killed him I wound up leaving for the guild flex run immediately after.  The THIRD time I went through and murdered him was the trip where I got my last Runestones.  And then Wrathion wanted me to go back for Lei Sheeyit’s crusty old heart (that’s three sizes too small), so I was forced to knock him off a fourth time!

Next step: Celestials, Celestials, and more Celestials.  Bombelina initially planned on doing Yu’lon’s ranged DPS challenge, since her DPS set has the higher gearscore, and really – how hard can shooting a blindfolded guy in the back really be?  Well, hard enough.  She ended up stomping off in a tizzy for two reasons:

1. She would get Wrathion down to 1% and then die either a second before him or at the same time because adds, but “close enough” apparently doesn’t count as a victory, and as a result she had to wait for all her cooldowns to reset (oh p.s., here, have some durability damage) AGAIN
2. OMFG YU’LON SHUT UP GAWD

Cooldowns … or Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Possibly both.

Shut up, Yu’lon.  Seriously.  Shut.  It.  Up.  All the various platitudes and pearls of wisdom ya got are fine and dandy to listen to during/after the first wipe, but when you keep repeating them while I’m in the midst of the third or fourth attempt?  Yes, DO tell me about paying attention to my surroundings in that high-minded, vaguely distracted tone you got.  SCREW YOU.  I OUGHTA FINISH THE JADE FOREST QUEST LINE AND BLOW UP YOUR STATUE.  HOW’S THAT, HUH?!  You wanna talk about the wisdom of knowing when to do freaking nothing, but you don’t seem to understand how this translates into, you know, NOT TALKING AND BEING ANNOYING.

So Bombelina ragequit packed up and went to her other least favorite Celestial, Chi-ji.  (Anything that hopefully mentions the hopeiness of hope tends to get her inner cynic up in arms.)  She wound up one-shotting the healing challenge there because lolz fate likes irony, and it wanted to point out that she really should’ve started here first.  (My protip on which challenge to do: if you can heal LFR on a Sunday, you can do the healing challenge EASY.)  She did have to help Wrathiepoo DPS his opponent, either because he is ungemmed and unenchanted or because he is just plain slow.  Based on how hard he hit her when she didn’t get out of the way at the Jade Temple, it was somewhat surprising to see him be so dang wimpy in Krasarangarang.

Freaking Slimes
Slimes, do not want. Stop. No touchy.

After THAT, it was time to take on the Celestials at the Timeless Isle.  As it turns out, it’s really freaking hard to get a Celestials group if you’re there on Thursday.  Or Friday.  Or Saturday.  Or Sunday.  Or Monday.  SIGH.  Unfortunately, because each Celestial DOES have to die to fulfill the quest requirements, there could be no sacrifice of guildmates a la Nalak.

But you don’t tell a goblin no.  BEHOLD!

I’M LEGENDERPY
Check it! YOUR GODLY GOBLIN OVERLORD HAS ARRIVED.
… and then other people got cloaks.

Yes, I picked the one with the prettiest wings.  It’s important.

Priorities
They may be warped, but I have them.

p.s., happy holidays for those of you who do Thanksgiving!

“Eighty Reflections” Set

Class: Druid

H: Self-Reflecting Mask (LFR) | S: Malleable Steelweave Mantle | Cl: Dervish Cape
Ch: Robes of Eighty Lights | Wa: Thatch Eave Vines | L: Not shown
G: Ahn’kahar Handwraps | Wr: Not shown | B: Not shown trollolol

Staff: Staff of Athen’a

Status: Finished

Thoughts: I forgot to post this when she was actually wearing it.  The LFR coloration of the mask shows up gray in game, and reddish brown in the Armory.  Wat.

What I Want, and What I Got
The two things are not the same.

After I complained one too many times about not seeing any live albatrosses on the Timeless Isle, Cav finally showed me where short, awareness-challenged people like me can find and successfully aggro an actual flappity bird on the Timeless Isle.  That is, if I wait long enough for one to show up.

I Don’t See How This Works
I’d say sorry about the horns, but, I’m not.

I can’t help but think that whoever came up with this whole albatross idea is a member of the “Flight is Detrimental to Game Enjoyment and Involvement” camp.  This sadistic designer is obviously using the poor avian as a way to force me to punish myself for my convenience-loving sins.  It’s like, “Oh, you want flying, eh?  Sure!  HERE, HAVE AN INCREDIBLY SLOW-ASS BIRD THAT ONLY FLIES IN A CIRCLE!  ALL THE BETTER TO APPRECIATE THE GAME ENVIRONMENT WITH AMIRITE.  Oh, you want down now, do you?  You’re gonna have to be a bird killer.  Yeah yeah, so now you can’t use it to fly again and jumping from this cliff would mean certain death, but don’t worry!  There will be another albatross going around in five minutes.”

I feel like I’m killing Orville from “The Rescuers” or something.

But maybe that’s ok, because if you disconnect while albatrossing, you’ll almost certainly die (unless you’re a mage or a priest, or possibly a Bouncy panda).  You’ll log in, still in midair, but birdless and with a swiftly approaching problem.

Really? I Mean, REALLY?
Nobody saw this coming? Not a soul? Nobody wanted to give a poor, now birdless player a parachute?

HELP I’M STUCK IN BLACKROCK
And LFD Won’t Let Me Out!

In what must be some sort of karmic class reversal, I’m leveling a warrior while Cav’s leveling a shaman (or a “totemic warrior,” as he likes to call it).  I don’t know, man.  I’m the goblin and he’s an orc, though, so I guess there’s still some sense in this crazy world.  Pixelby has just hit level 60, which enables me to make various proclamations on the internets about how Warrioring for Noobs is going.

As I’ve been leveling Pixelby, I’ve been thinking that I got a general compatibility disorder with any class that doesn’t come to the party with 300k mana. It would explain my overall ineptitude with rogue, kitteh, and warlock!  See, once I get a resource built up, I have a tendency to either not to use it at all or to run out of it almost instantly by BUTTONMASHING EVERYTHING.

When it comes to warriorizing the local dungeons, I vacillate between not using Rage enough and RAEGINGINGL:SKJDLBERSERKERING all the things.  For although I like pressing buttons (well established fact),  I get paranoid about spending Rage because I might not have enough left for Execute in the very narrow time frame when something in a dungeon can be executed.  Execute glows when you can use it, which is a plus in my book.  But the glowing means nothing but torture if you have too little Rage!  Execute will just shine all happily there on your toolbar until the mob finally dies, taunting you with your lack of Rage and the fact that you’ll never be able to generate enough Rage for the skill in time.

I like having more wiggle room to spam skills gleefully screw up a rotation do what I want, just because.  Hence 300k mana being better than having to generate Rage, or combo points, or burning embers, or whatnot – taking into account cooldowns and whatnot, I’m able to happily spam crap for longer.

Chaaaaaaaaaarge!
Of COURSE I bought the fire glyph. HOW COULD I NOT?

I still like Charge.  It’s the best warrior thing ever, especially when the party has left me behind ’cause priests and mages and movement things, leaving me forever alone in the dust, trudging along as fast as my little legs can take me.  But lo, is that a critter I spy between here and there?  CHARGE!  Half the distance, gone in a second (and the critter too).  Am I ever going to get to the combat action?  CHARGE!  Awwww yeah, now I’m back in the game!  My relationship with Charge is kinda like this:

I covet all the Charges in a way that may not be entirely sane.  My ideas to improve Warrioring almost all revolve around Charge.  Lemme Charge more often, maybe.  Or increase the range of Charge to 40 yards.  Or let me Charge in the direction I’m facing (any objects that attempt to intercept me do so at their own risk).  Actually, let’s just make Charge free to use whenever wherever, with a one second cooldown and no distance limitations.  Because AWESOME.

The whole thing seems kinda like a yawn once the Charge euphoria wears off, though.  Or in those situations where I can’t Charge at all because I Charged too much and now it’s on cooldown, or when it’s too late to Charge because the mobs are already in my face.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m wimpy or underpowered or something.  I like big swords and I cannot lie and all that, and thanks to heirlooms, I’m usually towards the top in DPS.

It’s just that … OOH YES FINALLY THERE’S A GLOWY BUTTON PRESS IT now I wait for the next.

ALL OF THEM NEED MORE
They glow in my dreams and nightmares.

Up until about 50 or so, there were waaaaay too few glowy buttons for my tastes.  And Execute isn’t really executey enough for me.  When I execute sheeyit, weapons should FALL FROM THE SKY.  Bombs maybe, that’d be logical, but swords and axes and stuff would also be acceptable.  When I get Bloodsurge, I ought to cause some giant crazed blood beast of doom to rear up from the ground and smack my opponent along with me.  ORRRRR, maybe Bloodsurge could give me GLOWING BLOOD SWORDS.  (Sword-chucks maybe?)

My guild finally achieved its most sought-after goal, the defeat of Garrosh Hellderpscream.  We beat him in flex, which I was present for:

Ding Dong Garrosh is De… wait

And in normal, which I was not.  (I suspect this maaaay have something to do with why they succeeded!)  The raid team has now elected to start working through the heroic version of Siege, which is a goal that frankly scares the ever living sheeyit outta me.  I don’t mind heroic content when it’s “OLD old,” like heroic Mogu’shan Vaults or even heroic Dragonsoul.  After all, Bombelina’s outgeared that stuff to the point where her item level literally compensates for my ever present derp mechanisms.  (ToT is probably still scary, though.)

Maybe it’ll be kind of like normal raiding, where I eventually get used to the concept and manage to derp around decently.  Or maybe I’ll just freak out and drop dead the moment Immerseus the Heroic looks me in my tiny goblin eyes, because OMFG normal is hard enough, Jeebus Tapdancing Cripes.  Take the Klaxxi Paragons fight, for example.  Since the regular raiders are of course REGULAR at this, they got the Official Kill Order memorized.  Welp, I don’t.  It’s more of a “TELL ME WHICH THING TO SHOOT AND I’LL SHOOT IT” thing for me.  Or during the Garrosh fight, let’s say we need to go left at all times to avoid the Desecrated Weapon, EXCEPT WHEN x, y or z happens.  But because I haven’t really practiced going RIGHT when z happens, well … I go left, since left is habit I’m left-handed, which means left is OBVIOUSLY the better direction.

You Thought it Was the Lich King, BUT NO
A banana got me.

TL:DR summary: Basically, I think I need a lot of work before I’m remotely helpful in heroic.  Getting rid of my last pieces LFR gear would be nice, of course, but I’m thinking more along the lines of practice at doing things like “not dropping Siegecrafter Blackfuse’s sawblades into the group AND not standing in the damn sawblades once they land.”  Or running the same direction as everybody else instead of the opposite (I always do that because the opposite was closer).  When it comes down to it, I do die in normal, but sometimes I live too, and this gives me hope that maybe there could be more living.

I just don’t want them to have to carry my 100% useless corpse any more than they already do.

And the completionist in me is like, HENRY CLAY FRICK*, I haven’t killed normal Garrosh myself yet!  I want to do THAT!

* So, Henry Clay Frick was apparently a gigantic jerk in his day, and his name STILL makes for great cursing.  It’s like when your parents refer to you by your full name because you are in Serious Trouble, but BETTER, because you are going to CAUSE the trouble.  For everyone.

I’ve been superbusy, you see, not because of the holiday but because of the whole ability to mail heirlooms to different servers.  THANK GAWD FOR MORE TRANSMOG STORAGE SPA… I mean, uh, yay!  More leveling!  I’ll be damned if messing around on the character creation screen isn’t fun, so I’ve ended up with a sea of small-time alts that I may never actually do anything with.  Only one of ‘em has achieved “having a spec” yet.

I’ve come up with good names for some of them, but mostly, it’s like I’ve rediscovered the joy of hitting the “Randomize” button.   Ideally, it comes up with a good name so I don’t have to think too hard, but it (perhaps unsurprisingly) delivers mixed results.  There have been some that I never would have gotten on WRA – seriously, I landed a name that was only THREE FREAKING LETTERS long on another server!  (Yes, that sort of thing is amazing to me.)  But some of the names the “Randomize” button came up with have just confused me, like this one:

How is This Even a Name
Is Blizzard setting me up to be reported, maybe?

I swear to Gawd I did not shop that name in.

A Million Shamans
IMAGINE ALL THE CHAIN LIGHTNING

At this point, I’ve decided to “focus” on two of the alts, one Horde, one Alliance.  Splattini is a goblin disco priest, created with three goals in mind: learn how to dance Atonement heal, stalk Rep (since Rep moved some characters to that server, which isn’t PvP!), and maybe someday see her idol, Fabulor, in all his fab glory at the Shrine.  You know, someday, when she’s dressed to impress better and when she’s like … not level 13.

The other would be Yynsia, a draenei shaman who hasn’t picked specs yet.  One of them will definitely be resto, because I’ve been tempted to level another Alliance healy-type.  That way I can bring a different character to the Old Ladies Raiding Guild when whim strikes, and healers are always useful.  The big question for Yynsia is – enhancement or elemental?  On the one hand, I’d like to try enhancement, and I’ve got all the mail agility looms.  On the other hand, while you can mail heirlooms across servers now, the same cannot be said of money or, most importantly, bags!  I’m not sure if or when she’ll have the bag space to carry two sets of gear!

Lastly, when did I end up with two sets of leather agility heirlooms?  Well, you know what THAT means – TIME TO MAKE ANOTHER ALT.

You act like I got a problem.

So like, I’ve been busy.  BUSY BEING AWESOME.

For example …

City of Giants
Looking for Great Noms

Goa whispered me earlier this week, telling me that I had to get to Org RIGHT NOW because GODZILLA.  I happened to be in town already, so it was only a moment before I discovered that somehow or another, we had several large giant dinosaurs marauding about in the Valley of Honor.  It was only another moment before I realized that if I used Ai-li’s Skymirror, I could become a dino too!

I tried dancing first, but I could only wave my tail – nobody noticed when I tried spinning my teeny little arms.  Exhausted by that effort,  I went swimming.

City of Giants
Dino-me was actually drowning here. Darn my tiny arms!

I had to stop relaxing and start terrorizing the local citizenry properly, though.  So I tried to go shopping.

City of Giants
HAS NO ONE IN ORG HEARD OF THE DINO ACCESSIBILITY ACT!?

I suppose I should clarify – I WAS able to get in.  Kinda.  Except like, you know, by destroying the ceiling.  Unable to partake in retail therapy, I then headed to the nearest liquor establishment to drown my sorrows.  That’s when this happened:

City of Giants
Not sure how to explain this one.

Aside from my wing positioning problem, it was a moment of toothy glory.

The Full Title
At the very moment of inspiration no less.

Lately I’ve been surprised by the number of people who perish in the flustercluck that is Durumu’s “maze” phase*, so I’ve written this guide for souls like me who want to survive but sometimes just can’t seem to manage it.   This is the “how to” for the folks who are observationally challenged, situationally incompetent or otherwise just generally confused.   It does NOT in any way instruct you how to do your role properly.  I do not cover other mechanics, nor the potential lore behind why the mogu would want to make an eyeball with teeth attached that also happens to be wearing a hat.  (The questions there really ARE endless!)  No, the sole point of this thing is HOW TO LIVE because IT’S KINDA IMPORTANT.  As written and illustrated, it is primarily intended for ranged players, but hell, since THE GOAL IS SURVIVAL and everybody likes that, melee can do it this way too if they want.

The good news is, nowadays folks are geared to the point where you’ll only have to deal with the maze phase once.  There have been a handful of occasions where I’ve seen Durumu downed even before it started.  But fear not if you must maze it.  Truly, my fellow LFRers, I once was like you.  And you.  And you.  And you, too.  I could not understand or see the maze properly.  It took ages before I figured out how it worked, let alone how to make it to the end of the phase!  Though I still think the maze is a bunch of purple bullsheeyit, I can offer actual, real-person proof that it is in fact possible to survive it on a regular basis.  So here is my Relatively Simple Way of making it.

CHOOSE YOUR BATTLE
(and it’s not the meters)

The key to the whole “making it out alive” thing is truly understanding your priorities during the maze.  So let’s make sure we all got the Most Important Thing up front and center: from the first laser until the last purple crap vanishes, you have exactly ONE THING to do, and that is to LIVE.  I am not kidding.  Nothing else matters.  Are you DPS?  Well, forget it.  Heals?  Obviously, you don’t wanna let the tanks go down, but YOU are the most important thing to heal.  Forget the deeps (unless they’re guildmates and can harass you for it later).  Tanks?  Well, uh, I’ve never tanked this particular fight, so I’m just gonna say, best pray to Gawd you tanks know WTF you’re doing.

In short, during the maze phase, DROP EVERYTHING BUT THE CONCEPT OF GETTING OUT ALIVE.

PREPARATION
(candy and summons are what warlocks are for, amirite?)

Let’s face it, you probably will stand in bad at one point or another, so you’ll want to bring a health potion or a healthstone to the fight with you.  They work instantly, which is ideal.  Standing still to cast a heal can be fraught with danger (for reasons laser beams discussed later).  I suppose you could be a druid with all the instant cast HoTs and so on, but for most of us that would require leveling and gearing.  Buying stuff off the AH or oppressing the warlock class is much easier.

KEY THINGS TO LOOK FOR
(not the purple fuzzy crap, that’s everywhere)

Fair Warning
This beam. This one. Points back at the door where you entered from.

First, look for this Disintegration Beam.  It ALWAYS points back at the door you entered the platform from, so it helps to keep your back to that door.  (This is also generally why all the freaking purple splotches are always on this side.)

Squigglies, Look For Them
This part is very important.

After a few seconds, these little itty bitty purple squiggly lines will appear on the ground, either on the left side or the right side of the beam.  This tells you which direction you need to run to, but not where specifically the openings will appear.  If you are going for the ranged path, aim towards the outside of the platform.  It’s incredibly important to move THE INSTANT you see these dang things, because you want as much of a head start on the laser beam of death as possible.

Find Your Opening (Highlighted)
Note that it can be on the far outside edge of the platform.

There are several paths or openings in the purple fuzz of doom, intended for melee and ranged classes.  These openings sometimes intersect during the phase, but are never together when they first start (so don’t hope for a double wide clear area at the beginning).  The melee circle is very close to the boss for obvious reasons, while the outermost ranged circle will be close to the edge of the platform.  The biggest advantage to the ranged channel is its larger diameter, which makes running the maze “feel” slower.  So if you’re having trouble with the inner melee one, screw that.  Forget DPS dignity.  Seriously, you’re gonna lose it when you die anyway, as death negatively impacts numbers.  When you see those purple squigglies, run your ass out to the outside edge, man.

Find Your Opening 2
Without red thingies added.

I personally like having my camera zoomed WAY out, but most importantly, I also like having it pointing directly down.  This is because it makes the channels easier to see.  I dunno about you, but I have trouble discerning purple fuzz that’s closer vs. purple fuzz that’s farther away (and hence the opening the purple fuzz is on either side of)  when the camera is at more of an eye-level angle.

The path will open up before you, little by little.  It is VERY IMPORTANT to stay VERY CLOSE to the opening edge, if that makes sense.  Why?  BECAUSE DEATH.

This Is Why You Run FAST
Do not dawdle, for you will get zapped daeeeeed.

If you delay, you’ll get hit by this laser beam of death and doom, which is following you quite quickly (because purple crap by itself wasn’t trouble enough).  Ideally, you’re far enough ahead that you won’t actually see the laser at all.  But if you reacted slowly to the initial squigglies or channel opening, you may see the laser approaching swiftly from behind – and that’s bad.  Use any movement cooldowns to get further ahead.   (Good news – the laser cannot speed up!)  This is the point at which you are most likely to step in purple stuff.

If you have DBM, it will eventually start a countdown to the end of the phase.  If you are NOT on the cutting edge of path opening, DO NOT STOP when the countdown begins – the laser persists for a bit longer, and it would suck to get zapped at the end.  Only stop when there literally is no more clear “forward” area where you can go.

The purple stuff will then vanish, and CONGRATULATIONS!  You might still be alive!  YAY!

* Depending on the day, I normally expect slightly less than half the LFR to die – but it seems as though the number is on the rise!  KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.  LEMME SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE.

It’s finally happened.  I’ve … I’ve become … boring.

I have to guess that’s the case, anyway.  I’ve found little inspiration in what I’ve been doing as of late, ’cause it’s like I’ve derped the same derps before and written about ‘em twice.  Let me roll my three precious, precious tokens for more gold, again.  Let me run LFR to get an offhand I can’t use in one wing and gold on all four bosses in the next, again.  I need to mine more, dink dink dink, again.  It’s not that things are bad, it’s just that the funny parts seem to be missing.  There was this time this beartank in LFR pulled too much sheeyit specifically to kill us all and I … wait no, that wasn’t funny at all.

Y’know …
Niuzao totally sounds like a jerk.

I’ve been boring before.  It’s kinda like a personal nightmare of mine, but it always ends eventually.  I usually just chill and sooner or later, something amusing takes place.  It’s just that I’ve never had a blog that people (other than family) actually read before, so now being boring feels kinda bad!  I must post.  I must write something funny.  I must be funny again.  But the more you intentionally look for funny, the less often it happens, or the more it happens in little chunks that don’t seem to be enough to sustain a blog post on their own.

Dr. Bombelina
Just because she bought her credentials doesn’t mean she’s wrong!

What to WRITE.

You’re So Vain
I Bet You Think This Hairdo’s About You, Don’t You

By now, I have become dependent on the Vuhdo healing addon to a degree where I am almost paralyzed without it.  This has posed a challenge on a couple of occasions when LFR let me zone in while the group was in combat, because Vuhdo won’t load if you’re in combat.  It also won’t update the groups display properly if people leave or join during fighting.  It’ll wait, nice and polite, until you’re done with all that.  BUT PEOPLE ARE STANDING IN BAD, VUHDO!  I NEED YOU NOW!

Now With Extra Derp
Sometimes, perceptions differ from reality.

I still haven’t purchased a new mouse with Moar Buttonz.  I might, or I might not.  I generally try to pick out the eight or so most important spells and bind those to clicks, which keeps life simple and so far has worked out more or less OK.  I may not have finesse, but I generally get crap done.  Then again, who am I kidding here?  I’m not buying a new mouse when the old one clicks just fine.

This is my take on the different healing classes, based on the classes I remember healing on.  This is basically anything that’s not a Holy Priest or a Mistweaver monk.  While I technically ran Cata dungeons as Mistweaver, it was mostly to make the queue quicker and I can’t remember diddly squat about it now (other than camera angle problems).

Sometimes, You Just Die
Cannonballs and people who want to live do not share the same goals.

Bombelina Says:
As a Resto shaman, you get to wear mail, which means absolutely nothing because mobs will still mess you up.  You do have a chance to survive if you outheal the damage, of course, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on praying for the tank to pull it off you!  Oh, the tank is dead?  Never mind then.  Actually, you should just stop healing now.  Gawd, wipe it up already!

Shamans have lots of advantages, especially if you’re passive aggressive.  Our water-themed spells make it easy to pretend that you’re throwing buckets of water on idiots, or making a sad cloud rain on their heads.  If it’s Earth Shield, you can say you’re throwing dirt on ‘em for good luck!  Oh, you wanted like, actual advantages?  Well, goblin totems are seriously the coolest thing since I invented the mechanized sandwich maker on wheels – what, you wanted non-goblin, general type of advantages?  You gotta be SPECIFIC about these things.

Okay, fine.  The BEST thing is being able to Reincarnate after you stand in something, and Mana Tide totem gives you precious, precious mana.  You can summon these elementals to help you out, which is neat.  And you can turn into … a man-thing?  What is that thing, anyway?  Well, you can turn into a Ghost Wolf too, and run fast indoors.  That’s some hot stuff right there.  And you can’t forget Bloodlust, or “Hero,” as the Alliance call it.  You can always tell what faction somebody plays on a regular basis by which one they ask for.

The disadvantage would be the fact that people keep on thinking you got a battle res for some reason, which is cracked.

Legalese
Before we zone into the raid, please sign on the dotted line.

Prinnie Says: BEST.  CAN BE GOBLIN.  A+.  Shamans are nice in general because Elemental is a DPS spec I don’t suck 100% at.  More importantly, resto shaman doesn’t have like, sixty million healing spells with extremely similar names that I must both distinguish between and use every last one of in order to be effective, which is a HUGE PLUS.  Sadly, I often feel like Riptide is kinda laughable and mostly pointless as a HoT, and unlike a disco priest, attempting to do a wee bit of DPS while resto takes forever and is not happening.  ALAS.  I guess you can’t have it all.

Old Ladies Raiding Guild
Don’t be fooled by the name, gentlemen, we’re open to all!

Niremere Says:
Should you choose to follow the way of the Light, you will be practically invincible – or so they say.  Do keep in mind that Fate likes to mess with you too, just as much as anybody else.

As we gain Holy Power in our work, so too do our special healing abilities increase in strength.  You must know when to save these holy energies, and yet, you must also be aware that to keep them to yourself accomplishes nothing.  Sadly, mana is a finite resource … but fortunately, we are able to plead with the Divine Light to restore our weary souls.

Done correctly, the Holy Paladin is a healer to be reckoned with.  Done incorrectly, you will regret the plate repair bills.

Prinnie Says: This one is good for shiny buttons.  Even better, you make this big light healy-thing that’s kinda hard to ignore AND you don’t have to get people to stand still in it, which is nice.  This is true even though I’m total crap at screenshotting it, which is why there’s a nice group shot instead!  The biggest problem I got is remembering to use Bacon Beacon of Light, which resets every freaking time you/somebody zones/dies/coughs/whatever.  And the other problem I have is that Horde paladerps can only be blood elves (annoying) or Tauren (have like, three hairdos max).

Let’s Be Honest Here
Tell me, how do you REALLY feel about your healer?

Betheki Says:
Yeah mon!  Follow tha way of the wild, be a Resto druid!  So dere’s dis mushroom ya glyph, and it is da best ting evah, which means it’s gonna get nerfed soon.  So enjoy da magic while it lasts!  Othah than that, mon, just cast Rejuvenate and then sit back.  Relax, ‘cept if there’s trouble.  In dat case, ya gotta make your mushroom bloom!  Don’t ask me if fungus should be bloomin’, mon.  I don’t be knowin’ dat.

When ya be a druid, ya know the skin you in is just one of many.  Fly free, mon, don’t be needin’ those fancy mounts to see tha sky.  Be wise, like a tree of long life, knowin’ dat dese roots, dey grow deep.  Stand strong in da storm!  And when ya be a druid, ya be in tune with tha natural way.  Ya get a fancy battle res.  Sadly, mon, dis one battle res ain’t never enough.  Just like in nature, where da need for tings is greater than tha supply, ya will find people keep on dyin’ all ovah da place, and they be beggin’ you for that res – but ya used it up already!

Prinnie Says:  Are you KIDDING me??  Placing a mushroom has no mana cost!?  BUT THAT’S LIKE … THAT’S … THAT’S LIKE ACTUAL FREE HEALS!!1!  Also related: multiple treants thanks to Force of Nature means I can make lots of pretty Venn diagrams.  (p.s., typing in troll is hard.)

The Harsh Truth
Ain’t gonna sugarcoat it.

Ailabeth Says:
Don’t look at me, breather.  I haven’t seriously healed as a Disc priest in well over a year.

Prinnie Says: I’m not surprised.  I’ll ask Splattini.

Prone to GREATNESS
Splattini doesn’t have a lot of flattering screenshots. She doesn’t let that stop her.

Splattini Says:
“The Great” Splattini, if you please.

Prinnie Says: For the love of … you’re only level 60!  You can’t have an attitude.

Splattini Says:
Then I’m not saying a word about how to disco.

Prinnie Says: …

The Great Splattini Says:
Sparkles, check.  Wings, check.  Bubbles everywhere, check.  Out DPSing the DPS, check.  I may be level 60, but I am a level 60 badass.

She Ain’t Gonna Take It
Oh no, she ain’t gonna take it. /rolls up sleeves

Prinnie Says: Just wait until you hit 90, kid.  I’m sure it’ll all go to hell.  Usually does.

The Great Splattini Says:
Look, your post-leveling issues mean nothing to me.  Did I mention Mass Dispel?  ’cause I got it, and you know you want it.  Oh, p.s., with Levitate, we’re gettin’ this party started.

Prinnie Says: Okay, so I haven’t hit the late 80s/level 90 “OMFG MANA” crunch yet, and really, until you start LFRing/raiding/encountering crazies, most LFD groups couldn’t care less WHAT class you are as long as they never die.  So although I’m told that Disco is better as a tank healer (which makes the notion of trying to heal 25-man LFR kinda … ominous), Disco seems pretty awesome right now.  Holy seemed like it had too many freaking things going on.  Either way, it’s important to know that as a priest, you can do this:

Step one: Rime of the A.M. Step two: become lizard. Step three: use Archangel. GLOWING PINK PIRATE LIZARD ANGEL THING.

Prinnie Says: Regardless of class, some things are just beyond your capability to remedy.

I Just Wat
On second thought, don’t wanna know.

Good News, Everybody
We now have scientific evidence that going AFK reduces the queue time by at least ten minutes.

I happened to be looking at Bombelina’s SoO LFR kill totals the other day.  They are, in order:

Wing One: Vale of Eternal WTFery

• Immerseus x14
• Fallen Protectors x14
• Norushen x14
• Sha of Pride x12

Wing Two: Gates of Retribution

• Galakras x11
• Iron Juggernaut x10
• Dark Shamans x9
• General Nazgrim x7

Wing Three: Underhold

• Malkorok x6
• Spoils of Pandaria x5
• Thok x5

Wing Four: Downfall

• Siegecrafter Blackfuse x4
• Paragons of the Klaxxi x3
• Garrosh Hellderp x1

From this assortment of digits and disappointments, I draw the following mostly unsupported and not necessarily even related conclusions:

1.) The Pain in the Assness Quotient increases substantially after Wing One
And as a result, my numbers begin to drop fast.  Unlike Ye Olde ToT LFR, I no longer finish one wing and queue for the next, and I’ve barely even touched the last wing at all.  Bombelina is the ONLY one who has defeated Garrosh (on LFR and Flex).  In comparison, a good number of my characters have downed Lei Shen, with Bombelina leading the pack at 18 LFR kills.  For Gawd’s sake, I’ve killed Siegecrafter Blackfuse and the Klaxxi more in Normal than I have in LFR.

Thanks to mechanics that require skills like group arrangement, personal restraint and focused DPS when presented with multiple targets, crap gets substantially harder for LFR groups after the Sha of Pride.  How many times have I seen people start the Galakras fight without setting up a tower team?  How many times have I seen people tunnel vision on Nazgrim only to die to all the adds?  (Oh yeah, or that whole DEFENSIVE STANCE business.)  How many times have I seen people attack different Klaxxi Paragons, or ignore Korven’s Amber?  (Answer: more than my number of kills would lead you to believe, since eventually I left and/or every group in question fragmented and quit.)

Blizzard did get smart when they made the Spoils fight require a grand total of FOUR people to start up in LFR, since somebody would ALWAYS kick the box and begin the encounter before everybody was ready.  So why, then, can the Galakras encounter STILL be started by ONE person?  Practically EVERY TIME I run that wing, SOMEBODY TALKS TO LORTHIE, and there’s NO ESCAPE once it has begun.

Yet it isn’t Pain in the Assness alone.  It’s also the fact that everybody’s annoyed as hell by the end of the first boss.

And They’ll All Go Down Together
If only I had a way to kill the tank without offing myself too.

2.) Four bosses is too damn long
Like that one time somebody was getting ready to sass me for doing the least number of dispels on the Sha of Pride trash, or by the time I get back to Nazgrim after the second wipe – I’m finished, even if the last boss is not.  I am just DONE by then.  DONE.  Many people lose their cool a lot sooner.  Combine long boss fights with four bosses in the first two wings and you get people dropping so damn fast that nearly any group will disintegrate before it even gets to three stacks of Determination.

Or you get people trolling.  “Why are we taking so long to pull the boss,” they say, in a whiny tone with less words, right before they pull the boss and kill everyone.  Not sure which result I like least.

3.) OMFG Trash
I know that this is supposed to be like, the penultimate raid for the expansion and sheeyit, but damn!  SoO trash is like a boss unto itself, only spread out and every-freaking-where you go.  Just run by the blind swordsmen? HAHAHAHA YOU ACT LIKE YOU GOT 25 NOT-COMPLETELY-DISTRACTED PEOPLE TOGETHER HERE.  Bunch up tight so you don’t pull all the adds in the middle of Org?  HAHAHAHAHA YOU’RE NOT MY MOM, YOU CAN’T TELL ME HOW TO STACK.  LFR didn’t know you had to kill ALL the orc engineers who open those boxes, letting out Shredders?  HAHAHAHAHAHA ENJOY THE PAIN AND SUFFERING, MOTHER TRUCKERS.

Speaking of those engineers: WHY is it that the gnomes take care of the trash in those rooms for the Alliance, but we Hordies gotta fight through it?  Why?  It’s like Blizzard is trying to counter Horde favoritism claims by making the last wing suck for Horde.  Or maybe they want us to struggle ’cause Garrosh was our Warchief or something.  Dudes, you put Garrosh up there, not me!

5.) The Midas Touch OF DEATH
RNG.

If ever I meet you in a dark alleyway, RNG, you’d best be prepared to take a plunger to the face.

You have been warned.

DON’T JUDGE
Agility. It’ll be the new priest tanking spec in WoD.

On the one hand, I like having individualized loot because I can’t imagine an LFR group trying to divvy up the goods, and also because I never win the really good crap when I have to roll against somebody.  But on the other hand, it still pisses me the hell off when I spend one of my three carefully acquired tokens, and get more gold.  It still irritates me deeply when I spend my evening hours trudging through Orgrimmar with crankyass, snarktastic LFR groups and enduring painful, long boss fights, only to get gold on every single freaking boss, or a piece of gear I can’t actually use.  YEAH, THANKS FOR THE OFFHAND, RNG.  DID I MENTION I USE A STAFF?

Maybe it’s because it seems to emphasize the unfairness somehow.  I have a limited amount (of course) of Seals (vs. 16 bosses or so if you include Ordos and the Celestials), and must be very choosy about spending them – therefore, when I finally use them and get the same old thing (A TRIFLING AMOUNT OF YET MORE GOLD!), it irritates me.  When I part with one of my precious, precious coins, I expect a damn piece of loot!

Maybe it’s because I can’t necessarily or easily get seals for the LFR that’s the appropriate level for the character in question.  For some of my alts, grinding Timeless Coins to purchase Mogu Runes of Fate is an impossibility.  Depending on my skill or lack thereof with an alt (as well as their gear), it may take too long to be practical, or may result in too many deaths.  Why can’t I choose which dang charm type I get from the quest guy?

Maybe it’s because I want to stomp on the toes of every asshat but can’t, and that impotent anger is redirected into RNG hate.

Or maybe it’s because I keep on hoping that dealing with sheeyit will be worth it because surviving said sheeyit will reward me with this or that thing that I’ve really wanted for whatever reason (getting rid of bad gear/getting a set bonus/etc.).  When it does not, it’s like I’ve gone through the same old sheeyit for no damn good reason.  If I cannot guarantee a replacement or even noticeably up my chance of upgrading my worst slots (why yes, that character is carting around a 450 trinket, thanks), then why bother?

I’ve started writing down what I get, or trying to at least.  I take note of the character, the date, the LFR/flex, what loot I received initially, whether or not I rolled, and what I received for that roll.  The idea here is that I will be able, in times of great gear sadness, to look at the list and say, “but hey, Bombelina got such and such on this date!”  Either that, or it’ll just reinforce my stinky RNG.  Probably the latter.

Also entitled, “The Case for People Who Don’t Read the Dungeon Journal.”

While we’re in this bubble together …
BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT GO

Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not arguing for the complete, utter abandonment of “personal responsibility,” “independent learning capability,” “initiative,” or whatever you want to call it.  I personally hate it 100% when tanks show up in LFR and announce they don’t know what they’re doing or that they’ve never once been there before.

I am suggesting, however, that our ideal – the LFR player who reads up ahead of time – is a high standard that is pointless to apply to the majority of players, and in clinging to this ideal, we do nothing more than frustrate ourselves and others.  We play in a reality where the available tools simply do not provide the necessary information in the right way for those who would like to run LFR.

Your High Expectations Lead to Disappointment
Repeated disappointment makes you act like this!

You know what the most efficient method of gaining knowledge is for most folks?  It’s people.

“BLEEPING HELL,” you yell.  “THERE’S THE MOTHER TRUCKING DUNGEON JOURNAL IN THE GAME!  HOW HARD IS THAT?”

Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but if you consider what the LFR player REALLY wants to know, the Dungeon Journal format sucks.  Let’s break down what each role needs into the smallest, most generalized pieces possible.

If I am a DPS, I need to know the following things …

1. My own damn skillset
Example: Dude, with this Soulstone, I could battleres a tank or something!

2. What to attack
Example: STOP DPSING BLACKFUSE AND ATTACK THE CRAWLER MINES!

3. Mechanics that will wipe me personally
Example: Standing right next to Thunderstruck!

4. HOW TO AVOID IT
Example: Run far away!

5. Mechanics that will wipe the entire raid if I eff them up
Example: Leading Thok through the raid!

6. HOW TO NOT EFF IT UP
Example: Not leading Thok through the raid!

If I am a healer, I need to know the following things …

1. My own damn skillset
Example: Where did all my freaking mana go!?

2. What is dispellable and what needs to be dispelled
Example: OMFG STOP DISPELLING ON SHA OF PRIDE TRASH I KNOW IT’S FUN BUT IT’S MORALLY QUESTIONABLE!

3. Mechanics that will cause periods of intense or raidwide damage
Example: So, when everybody’s got a lot of Pride, and nobody moves for Swelling Pride …

4. Mechanics that will wipe me personally
Example: What’s this yellow circle thing on me during the Fallen Protectors fight?

5. HOW TO AVOID IT
Example: My beloved DPS, let me share this damage with you!

6. Mechanics that will wipe the entire raid if I eff them up
Example: Thok hears you like being locked out of Holy magic, and he wants to help!

7. HOW TO NOT EFF IT UP
Example: Wish you were a druid! Pay attention to Thok’s cast timer and pray for some sorta instaproc!

If I am a tank, I need to know the following things …

1. My own damn skillset
Example: Oh, so Death Grip DOES work on those!

2. What number of stacks of what debuff to swap at
Example: Horridon, Dark Shamans, Nazgrim, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

3. What boss(es) and/or adds I need to grab
Example: Dear Fellow Tank, I’ll start with Kardris, and you grab Haromm!

4. Where to stand and what direction to face so I don’t kill the raid
Example: Dark Shamans in Falling Ash = Bad!

5. Mechanics that will wipe me personally
Example: The other tank not taunting!

6. HOW TO AVOID IT
Example: Screaming at the other tank to taunt!

7. Mechanics that will wipe the entire raid if I eff them up
Example: Pretty much everything!

8. HOW TO NOT EFF IT UP
Example: Do everything right, duh!

There are some consistencies here, no?

Inefficient Delivery of Information
Also known in this case as TMI

So let’s say I look at the Dungeon Journal to address these basic info needs.  What I get is a long, detailed list of abilities that may or may not be relevant (and which must be expanded/minimized) in a small area, in addition to a couple of tabs which let you look at loot and a large picture of the boss itself.  Okay, so the picture looks cool, I guess.  But really, I don’t need that kinda emphasis on its appearance or the ability to rotate the freaking boss model.  I know what the boss looks like.  IT’S STANDING RIGHT THERE.

Dynamic Interactivity
If I were gonna cosplay this box, the ability to rotate the model is sweet!

I don’t need to know that the ability will cause XYZ damage over XYZ period of time.  The numbers are useless information, because in the heat of the moment, I am almost certainly not going to be looking at my HP, reading up on the damage numbers (or magically remembering them?), and making the obviously simple mathematical calculation to THEN conclude that this crap is going to kill me.  No.  Just tell me if this sheeyit will kill me dead and how damn fast it’ll do so.  If it’s not that fast, is it sheeyit I should stand in for some reason?  Yes or no?

Tell me what’s IMPORTANT, not everything.

So, we might then argue that the Dungeon Journal is kinda useless, unless you wanna look at loot.  “BUT THERE’S ICY VEINS,” you retort.  “YOUTUBE EVEN.”

Well, if the Dungeon Journal contains too much crap for immediate reference, then Icy Veins is still far too detailed for most LFR users.  They want only the minimum amount of info needed to survive any given encounter.  The Immerseus guide, for example, has three paragraphs on positioning.  The LFR version would be something like, “SPREAD OUT EVENLY AND DO NOT STAND ON THE SAME PLATFORM AS A TANK.”  Done.

Let’s be real.  Very few LFRers are going to read the entirety of a guide when there’s something better available – their fellow players.  It’s rare to find a group where absolutely no one will say something, especially if it’s one of the tanks asking for a run down.  After all, dealing with someone’s ignorance by giving the silent treatment is kinda stupid.  (That’s not to say that people DON’T do it, but most folks are socially conditioned not to.)  You’ll also have people like me.  I don’t care whether or not I’m enabling idiocy – I’d prefer to take charge of the situation by giving instructions over wiping!  So I’ll often yell the right target to attack during Fallen Protectors, whether somebody’s said they don’t know what to do or not.  I can tell, DPS.  I see you attacking Sun.  I’ll yell when to spread during the Sha of Pride fight.  If telling people to stack or whatever helps me live, then by Gawd, I am going to do it.

If we’re going to go for simple, the best guide I have found thus far is the “DPS Raid Guide – LFR” on WoWHead.  Sadly, there’s so much content and lots of guides, so this is not easy to find if you don’t know it exists or how to look for it.  (I also like the gif guides there, but I like gifs in general.  They often come with cats.)

Let’s have one more cranky curser + sneezing cat shot for the road.

Because, You Know, The Pet Won’t Die or Something
Also like, it’s the little anima golems and I wanted one off my face. CHILL!

Over inertia, at least!

Once upon a time when Wow-kemonz were new, I started a level 1 team of three Prinnie-approved pets.  While you should keep in mind that my endorsement has absolutely nothing to do with special skills, pet battle theory or in fact much at all, my selection nonetheless successfully (and somewhat indiscriminately) slew opponents from the shores of Durotar to the forests of Pandaland.  I like to think it’s the power of Awesome in action.

Still, pet battling did not become a top priority in my day to day doings.  It was more of an “oh look, I just happen to be in an area with opponents of the same level range!” kind of thing, or a “well crap, the DPS queue is going to take an hour” type survival mechanism.  So it was rather surprising when this recently happened:

Acheesements
Twice as shiny because I wasn’t paying attention beforehand.

Whoa.  You mean they’re like … maxed? 

Wait just a second.  AN IDEA IS PERCOLATING HERE.

Yes, at that precise moment, I had an epiphany.  I realized that leveling a crapton of pets to 25 is now no longer so huge an undertaking, as long as I pick pets that are, you know, closer to 25 than they are to 1.  BUT THEN AGAIN, I could also put a super lowbie pet into a WINNARZ battle convoy of sorts!  As long they survive A SINGLE FREAKING ROUND, they get EXP – why, any one of the Winnarz could then take over the actual job of viciously smacking my opponents.  (Like Crabcakes, for example.  He may be kinda slow, but he does not take sheeyit.)

But Gawd forbid I choose anything based on expectations of performance or useful skills.  Surely not!  That would be almost LOGICAL.

Standards?  Ailabeth Does Not Care
Not now. Not later. NEVER.

So now I am leveling MOAR.  I will get 400 unique pets!  I shall Safari all the continents!  I shall never attempt to level an undead and an elemental at the same time again!  Maybe I’ll even beat the Celestial Tournament WITH CHICKENS (highly unlikely but MIRACLES DO HAPPEN).  I will … I dunno, but I will.  You know, eventually.

A momentary tangent on warlock spec abbreviations before we begin: “Destro,” sure, that’s cool.  “Aff” or “Afflic,” okay, whatever.  It’s “Demo” that I got a problem with, because every time I read it, I see “Demolition.” In my mind, the demolition of something equals the destruction of its existence and destruction OBVIOUSLY equals Destro, so therefore we’re talking about FIREEEEEEE, right?  Aaand then I realize that I’m so wrong.  I guess “Dem” wouldn’t be that much better, though, since I might just assume that Demonology warlocks all have liberal political beliefs or something.

Anyhoo, Ignitine’s been Destro since day one.  Many folks assured me that Destro was/is the easiest of the specs, and Lord knows I’m not about to start making things more challenging for me than they already are.  There was a brief period of time in which I tried Affliction, but  …

I CAN DO THIS.  I WILL GET THIS.
Behold the power of positive thinking!

… yeah, they were right, Destro is easiest.  When Affliction wasn’t looking like a whole lot more management than I could handle, sheeyit kept dying before I finished casting all my damn Affliction DoTs and that annoyed me.  So back to Destro it was!  YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH MORE FIRE.

Or rather, it was back to sitting in some inn, accumulating rested EXP.  Maybe it was because all the pets but the Voidwalker annoyed me one way or another, but using the Grimoire of Sacrifice was weird, because I didn’t like the lack of a pet either.  The prospect of someday attaining green fire wasn’t really all that motivating.  Now, if it was purple fire, we’d be talkin’.  Green?  Eh.  I can’t say that it appeals to me on a “I WIN AT WARLOCK” level either, because who’s not paying attention and spamming Immolation?  THAT WOULD BE ME.  I could never keep up with green fire-set expectations.

CAN’T WE TAKE A BREAK!?
No, because we already did!

So Ignitine sat quietly until Goa had another altoholism flareup.  At first, while in the 70s, I still felt the mehs.  I was pretty sure I had more or less conquered my tendency to spam excessively refresh Immolation, yet I remained at the bottom of the barrel in terms of DPS.  Then, too, it’s hard to feel badass when you have to stand still for two seconds to cast and the tank has already dragged all the mobs out of range.  But then Ignitine hit 80, and quite suddenly, I was a DPS master!  I went from being the total derps of any LFD group to hitting like a ‘zerked raid boss!  (Or so I like to think.)  My skill level had not increased, nor had I quite overcome my love of hoarding all the embers so I could be on fire as much as possible, but as it turns out, Destro warlock Mastery is SUPER EFFECTIVE.

You Have Captured Level 85!

Plus, things just kind of got silly, which generally improves my feelings about a class by 10% or more.  How the hell am I on fire while underwater in Vashj’ir?  I AM WARLOCK.  I DO NOT NEED YOUR FOOLISH HUMAN LOGICS.  I hit 85 with a pet battle.  I AM WARLOCK.  I DO WAT I WANT.

Interesting
Every time I go to the Valley, there’s this mushan stuck in a rock.

Ignitine’s now level 90, but she does face a challenge – I didn’t anticipate leveling her, so all of the cloth tokens my other characters collected on the Isle went to gear Ailabeth and Esplodine.  Poor gal has actually had to go look for the treasure chests on her own!

Gettin’ Ready
Soon I will be Prepared.

But give her time.  Then, all the things will be on fire.  ALL OF THEM.

Prinnie: While the “Mog the World in 80 Days” contest sounded like a cool idea, I’m just way too lazy to keep up with something that complex for so long.  Then I learned there was a Roy G. Biv type contest!  What’s this?  A contest of just seven six colors?  Even I can handle that!  The biggest challenge becomes choosing who to represent this blog!

Ignitine: Oooooh!  MEMEMEMEME!  Pick me!  Pick me!!  I CAN DO THIS.  I just hit 90, and you KNOW warlocks get all the neatest stuff!

Prinnie: That’s true, they do got a lot of cool stuff.  Show us what ya got.

Ignitine: YESSSS.

Warlocks Have The Neatest Stuff
… from a certain perspective

Ignitine: THIS VALENTINE’S DAY, REMEMBER TO HUG YOUR TENTACLE MONSTER!

Prinnie: …………….  Much warlock.  Such shock.  Who let you out of the basement again?

Ignitine: I’m a shoo-in for victory, I assure you.

The “Remember to Hug Your Tentacle Monster” Set

Class: Warlock (Red requires Horde)

H: Tyrannical Gladiator’s Felweave Cowl | S: Tyrannical Gladiator’s Felweave Amice | Cl: Auchenai Death Shroud
Ch: Furious Gladiator’s Felweave Raiment | Wa: Furious Gladiator’s Cord of Dominance | L: Not shown
G: Tyrannical Gladiator’s Felweave Handguards | Wr: Not shown | B: Veteran’s Mooncloth Slippers

Dagger: Fanged Tentacle
Offhand: Thermotastic Egg Timer

Thoughts: Normally I prefer to actually get the items in game and literally mog them – it makes me feel accomplished gives me something to do.  But given the approaching deadline, I found I had to use Mogit and “pretend,” if you will.  There was just no way I was going to be able to get it together, especially since I wanted to post this before Valentine’s Day.  While Ignitine is 90 now, this outfit requires a stupid amount of Honor, which is best considered a “long term” kinda goal where I’m concerned.  Goa gallantly offered to carry Ignitine to high item level PvP gear tentacle-tastic transmog glory, but I wimped out.