I’ve been wanting to produce one of those ‘incredibly long topic list’-titles like Spinks does so well for a long time now and today I finally got the chance. That’s another goal for 2011 out of the way, go me!
25man blues
Times are being so-so in WoW at the moment; it appears that 25man raid guilds have pretty much disppeared from the face of the earth which makes recruitment for Adrenaline a bit of a MAJOR PITA right now. We assumed it was gonna be harder in Cataclysm, but by now I’m amazed how Blizzard has managed to kill off the 25man mode so completely and it’s not just happening on our server. It makes me sad and wonder if people really do only raid for loot…What happened to more epic scale battles? Or is the hassle of trying to coordinate a stable 25man team just too much work for people nowadays? That second reason I can understand at least. All that said, I miss you 40man WoW! We will see what happens, I guess.
Raiding goodness
On the bright side, Adrenaline first raidweek has been very successful, 4 bosses went down for us in BoT and BWD and also: holy is officially awesome! While we really didn’t look so great in the new heroics, holy priests still rock the raidhealing boat and there’s lots of holy love to be shared in these new encounters. I’m not surprised to see PoH get a minor nerf soon; it’s already very powerful and my mastery rating isn’t even very high yet. All in all we got some really sweet patches incoming (Chakra, SoL, CoH) and the slight nerfs to PoH and our regen will matter little in the long run, even if we might feel them right now.
I got my first epic loot drop too and…oh noes, I look like Aladdin! The matching carpet was the obvious consequence. Matching dress and shoes – so last season!
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| “A whole new woooorld…” (and I’d still rather be sitting, srsly!) |
In other news, I have successfully coerced enough of our guildies to join me on a 50k CDSC (critter death squad campaign) this last Sunday – finally my subtle convincing attempts paid off. It took us approximately 8 clears of Terrorweb Tunnel in Eastern Plaguelands which is swarming with bugs and spiders aplenty. We had jolly good fun on ventrilo, even if most of us realized later on that we can’t buy the armadillo pup yet, lol!
If anyone of you is looking to get this achievement done with his guild soon, I can really recommend that spot. Respawn time is every 3-4ish minutes and easily adds another 5k+ to that body count in a raid of 15 people. The more you are, obviously the faster you’ll be. And no bunnies or squirrels involved, promise!
Community highlights and another guest post
The WoW healing community has been spilling over with the whole “healing heroics, yay or nay”-topic these past few weeks and I’ve been following many articles with great interest, especially one by Ophelie where she tells us how healers can make a difference in PuGs. I’m always amazed to read how fellow healers still put up with the LFG madness in Cataclysm….I can’t say I do (I know, it must come as a shock to you) and so naturally, I had to share how much of a difference I’m not making:
Watch me NOT healing any PuGs over @ World of Matticus where Matt has been so kind to publish another one of my articles (and not just that, I’ve officially gotten my own mugshot on the page, how cool is that?). I had great fun writing it and I’ve tried to include all the related and inspiring articles I came across myself before (though I clearly failed to mention them all), so you might find yourself link-loved!
Judging by some of the reactions and also a look around the blogosphere this morning, the topic will definitely keep WoW healers and bloggers occupied for a while to come.
Another highlight of the week were definitely also Larísa’s PPI Awards for 2010, so in case you missed her great summary of what’s been hot and steaming around WoW and the blogging community in 2010, there’s your chance to catch up! A very detailed and informative read with many great nominations and well-deserved winners, and this silly blogger here even got mentioned too. I can’t say more than thanks to everyone who might have mentioned my articles or this blog, thank you so very much indeed whoever you might be, the bloggers linking us and all our regular readers (you’re sure this is the blog you’re meaning to read, right? just checking!). It’s a great joy to have been included.
Now let the weekend come, it’s already been the perfect week. Congratulations again to all winners and enjoy your weekend everybody! ^^
aladdina!
*lolz and runz
theB
Sorry to hear that the 25-man recruiting isn’t going so well – I was actually surprised by how many bloggers’ 25-man guilds seemed to have survived the Cataclysm unscathed, but I guess the last word on that issue hasn’t been spoken yet.
Good to hear that holy is holding up well in raids. How are you finding mastery? Is it worth prioritising over haste and crit?
And interesting tip for the critter killing… my guild master has been urging us on to work on that achievement and I’ve always protested because I don’t like killing squirrels and bunnies – but if there’s a place full of nothing but nasties I might consider helping. 😛
@Shintar
To me it seems like we’re a pretty much dying breed at the moment. but indeed, the last words haven’t been spoken there.
as for holypriesting, I find that once you’re good on the regen, you really want to concentrate fully on getting those mastery numbers up, it’s very powerful. some haste to go with that of course, but not gimping myself in any way for it. crit is pretty much the least desired stat for us atm even though I notice there’s a fair bit on it on some items (itemization for us seems a tad odd for certain slots..).
and nobody feels remorse over killing spiders and bugs! =D
I’m not sure if your guild plans on doing hardmodes, but I have a feeling that will be when 25m guilds shine. Looking at guild rankings during normal modes is depressing, but 10s progression seems to really come to a halt once guilds step into heroics.
@Liore
You’re probably right. but the issue then is that in order to do hardmodes (which we try to), you need a stable and consistent raid team and steady recruitment. so it’s a vicious cycle basically, if you can’t find suitable applicants, you can’t build up a 25man raid force that is able to get into hardmodes fast. not an easy situation.
I do think Liore is right and that 25 mans shine more in hard mode content, which could be intentional or a tuning-issue. I think it will in turn likely shift the balance back from 10s to 25 man raids in the near future though, which will hopefully alleviate recruitment concerns. I reckon we’ll end up with progression focused people looking towards 25 mans while ten man raids will either focus on normal content or require pushing a little harder to get through hardmodes with a smaller roster, overall meaning that there’ll be a lot more options for people of all playstyles. We’ll see! All in all I am quite convinced that Blizzard don’t want either raid format dying out and will take steps to prevent that should it become a serious problem.
And the real reason for my post: while not as useful now you’ve done the achievement, a great spot to farm critters for it is also the former room of the snake boss in ZG. There are a lot of colourful snakes there that respawn almost instantly when killed, and since its a lot less ground to cover than the Terrorweb Tunnel I found it a lot more relaxing just running in circles aoeing there. Snakes might not be as easily killed without remorse as spiders and bugs, but they aren’t bunnies and squirrels either.