Motivation, you needs it

Together with the group of friends I raid with we have reached a very delicate point in our raiding experience. We have relieved Arthas of his burden a few times by now and we easily breeze through the normal encounters up until the Frozen Throne. If we were to continue down this path we would soon hit the so called Plateau-effect, which we are still very familiar with, thanks to ToC. So hardmodes it is. The week after our LK kill we tried a few hardmodes here and there gave it a few shots but quickly went back to normal mode. Gunship was a push over as always, and we also managed to bring down Festerface and Rotgut and even Bloodqueen within a week.  But we would still refrain from actually trying to progress, that is, working on a boss fight’s new mechanics until we got them down.

And that’s where it became apparent that our raid group had different individual aspirations when it comes to ICC. Some of us want to take the easy route and take few more swings on the LK to get some better gear, whereas others (me included) want to make “actual” progression. At this point, I don’t want to be in our Raid Leader’s shoes. I think he has done a fantastic job up to now, being open to suggestions from everyone and leading us as a group. Sometimes it feels like he could be a little more authoritarian and quiet all the chatter, but altogether I think we have been in pretty good hands. One of the reasons we have been struggling the last week is because everything up to the LK was just far too easy. We got used to joking around during encounters and wiped on trash more than on bosses. The adjustment to new mechanics of familiar bosses brought us back down to the harsh ground that is reality.

We also encountered another difficulty. The fact that raid balance is very hard to obtain in 10man raid groups. We are a very heavy caster group with 2 melee (ret pally, feral druid) and 4 casters (boomkin, 2 mages, shadowpriest). With our boomkin gone for the summer we lost two essential buffs: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=24858] and http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48396. Even tho heroic Blood Queen was more or less on farm for us, we now have difficulty beating the enrage timer with a near perfect run. If it is going to be a permanent problem we will have to consider to a) do it on normal until we have the dps, b) switch specs around and have our Resto Shaman go Enhancement to buff our melee dps, and last but and very much least favorite c) bring in a different player. The last is probably not going to happen unless someone takes a break or quits. We like to do progression, but this is all about playing with the group of friends we have made rather than pushing onward, not matter what.

At the end of last week we all agreed on getting back to basics and to BTFDAGID. with the beginning of every raid lock out our raid leader is going to post the plan for the week and what hard modes we will attempt without calling it after just a few attempts. We will try and get together enough people before the actual start of our raid time to clear trash and be ready to engage the boss once every one has logged on. In addition, we will get back into the habit of recording our attempts using WoW Logs. I think these are some essential steps in making sure that we are once again prepared to tackle the new and challenging without giving up too soon.

My question to the few, the proud, the readers: Would you do it differently or would you add something to the list?

Every 4 years…

The fascination starts soon!  The one month period that is going to free me from my every day routine, gets my heart racing. I can already feel it: my heart is pumping faster, sweat is collecting on my forehead and my pinkie has been starting to twitch lately. It is the time of the year, where fans of opposing teams come together, drink a cool beer, use the (empty) mug to get a point across, and at the end of the day pat each other on the shoulder. It is the excitement of watching 20 very talented actors…….cough…… players constantly chase after the leather while 2 just sit back and watch the debacle that unfolds.
The end result is very obvious to me: Germany wins it all. But I might be just a tiny bit  bias. Either way it ends, two things are clear as every 4 years. It’s gonna be awesome. And…the USA is gonna have a quick attendance, as always. However, I am pressed to say, they are looking strong this year. I would be delighted to see them advance to the knockout round.

May the best win

Jamming

Leveling a new character from scratch has been made easier than ever. Personally, I can’t account for what it was like in Vanilla WoW or even most of BC, since I started playing WoW through a RL friend, who dragged me through levels 1-60 with recruit-a-friend. I suppose the actual leveling experience of my very first toon started in Outlands at level 60. Now, with a total of three 80s and several alts in various level ranges I have come to terms with the grind that is called leveling. This is the following procedure before I start a new toon:

– Do I have all Heirlooms for the respective class I want to level?
Yes? Moving on.
No? Do I have enough spare badges to  buy at least chest and shoulders for the XP bonus?
Yes?  Moving on.
No? Gotta wait until I got them to start the character

– create character
– make bags and send them
– send gold

We are so spoiled by all the extras that Blizzard has added to make leveling easier. Mounts at lvl. 20 and yet I still find myself moaning about the fact that I will have to walk around for 20 levels. In fact, that is clearly the worst part of leveling. The seemingly endless traveling, killing mobs, picking flowers, errand runs, etc. And that brings me to the actual point of my post:

What does the average person do to kill the time/boredom?

I for myself am a huge of music in general. I sometimes think that I wouldn’t be able to function without music. Be it to make music myself (go go Guitar Hero, Rock Band…) or listen to some as well. My taste ranges from trance/house to 80s and 90s rock, from hip hop to classic. To sum it up: anything but Country music. It’s just not in me. So when leveling, I often find myself going to one particular website: http://www.letsmix.com/. It is meant as a showcase for up and coming DJ’s and one can browse through the world of electronics. Especially House is great to have a constant beat in the background that is not too obnoxious. Also, every now and then the in-game music of Blizzard in raids, as epic as it is sometimes, just won’t cut it. That’s when I fall back on my collection of Orchestra Movie Soundtracks, most notably that of Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. Vent is toned down in hopes that I down miss anything of particular importance. I usually don’t. At least that’s what keep telling myself 🙂

Numero Uno

It seems that nowadays everyone has a blog to share their thoughts with the world wide web. And today it is my turn to join the long ranks of the brave, the (not so) few, the Bloggers. In a quick introduction:

I am 24 years of age and currently go to a college in Western Pennsylvania. I am an enthusiastic gamer and the focus in my blog will be mostly about World of Warcraft. My main is the Shadowpriest Banibaq on the US-Mug’thol Server. I am part of the arguably one of the best Guilds out there (I am being totally objective here): Bucklers of Swash. When I say “best”, I don’t mean we have the most skilled players or have progressed the furthest in the shortest amount of time. It is the mentality that is present among us that is, quite frankly, unique. And it has made my WoW experience so much better and invaluable. So much in fact that I can’t see myself play without them.

But I’m ranting already. I guess that’s what blogging is all about. Ranting on, throwing out thoughts and ideas and hoping that someone, somewhere, sometime will read all of this and NOT /facepalm.