Guilds, EoE, and 3.1

Guild changes

After much thought and debate, I changed guilds last week. My original guild was created by my RL friends and myself, so this was not an easy choice. The core group is still in regular contact, and in fact more may join me in my new guild; it's a guild who we've been collaborating with already so it's a natural move.

It's still a culture shock. My old guild was down to 4 or 5 regulars who I'd see most nights, and sometimes less than that. The new guild has 150ish toons and 20-25 online most nights, with more on the weekends when we run Heroic raids. They're good people and I'm enjoying it so far.

Eye of Eternity

I got into my first EoE run last weekend, on normal. It was interesting even though we didn't get Malygos down. It's pretty hard to learn and I made my share of mistakes. We had a couple of early wipes, but mostly ran into the enrage timer, probably because we were slow to get through the first two phases.

You can find complete descriptions of the Malygos fight but I'll give a quick outline. The first phase is mostly a normal dragon fight, with two complications. One are the sparks that show up; if they reach Malygos they buff him, but if you kill them they leave a static patch on the floor that gives you a (stacking) buff. Also, Malygos will toss you in the air at times, which gives you a significant DOT and eventually falling damage. This phase lasts until you get Maly to 50%.

The second phase sees Malygos take off and adds show up on floating discs. Your DPS has to kill the adds, who drop their discs. Melee DPS will grab the discs, and fly up to engage more adds. Meanwhile, Malygos spits out shield bubbles that you have to use for protection. The bubbles shrink over time so you have to run from bubble to bubble. This phase lasts until you kill the adds.

The third phase puts you onto dragons, vaguely similar to the beloved end of Oculus. It's a cool concept but stressful because you have to learn different movement and fighting controls and techniques. The good news is that you can practice this. There's a daily quest near the Nexus that uses the same dragon controls. You can pick up the feeder quest Corastrasza right by the flight point at Transitus Shield. From there you mount and fly waaaaay up above the Nexus. There's a platform there where you meet Corastrasza and pick up Aces High. I would definitely recommend running that at least a few times before trying EoE.

So, it's a complex fight. Not everyone likes it! It's a frustrating fight to learn; don't be surprised if you wipe a lot at first. I'm still interested enough in it to keep trying.

Patch 3.1

We've seen fewer and fewer PTR changes in the last week, and we haven't had a new build in a few days. So 3.1 would appear to be close to completion. There's a tentative date for Noblegarden, starting on 26 April. So my best guess is still that 3.1 will arrive 14 April, with 21 April the backup date if issues pop up.

Obviously Ulduar is the major new content in 3.1, but there's also the whole Argent Tournament concept, an almost-new holiday with Nobelgarden, dual spec capability, multiple new interface features, and a host of class changes. I'm looking forward to it; here's hoping it comes off without major glitches!

Catch Up

I feel like I might blog some more. So as a placeholder - and with no discussion - I'll give an update about what's happenened in the past year.

In short, I've kept playing. A lot! The highlights:

• I leveled Alamein to 70. She's done a lot. While leveling she was Restokin spec (moonkin/healer hybrid). On reaching 70 she's mostly alternated between full Resto and various full Balance specs. Recently (within the last month) I've also experimented with a feral tank spec. But if you asked me what Alamein is, I'd say "healer" without question.


• We started a guild, Talon Guard. We grew rapidly, built to raiding Karazhan a bit, and then ran into too much tension between aggressive hardcore raiders and more casual players. We couldn't raid enough to please most and lost most of our members in one week. On the other hand we've kept some of our most mature and fun members and have formed some close friendships.


• I leveled a second toon to 70: Sali, my gnome mage. She just dinged 70 last week, and I'm having a lot of fun with her. She's been Fire spec the whole way, and I'm still enjoying that. She's now venturing into the world of daily quests with the goal of getting her epic flyer. Just last night, she completed the quests to run Sha'tari Skyguard and Ogri'la dailies.


• I've PvP'd a little. Alamein has done a good bit of battlegrounds, especially Alterac Valley -- she's Exalted with the Stormpike Guard. On the other hand she's only run a handful of arena matches, and has yet to spend her first arena points.

So that's what I've been up to. I'll post more later about what I'm doing on a daily basis. But suffice to say, it's now about getting ready for Wrath of the Lich King. I'm excited about the expansion and am hoping to do a lot of things when it arrives. Should be fun!

Weekend Update

I don't have any major insights to offer today. I didn't play as much this weekend, as real life was quite busy instead. So I'll just feature a few odds and ends.

39 and Holding
Last week, we decided on a leveling plan. Our hunter friend Firegrin has been a consistent 5 or so levels behind the rest of us. He just got started later, and it's hard to catch up when you're questing with the players you're trying to catch. Not to mention that he's the only one of us with a child!

So, DK proposed that we advance to level 39 and then hold. That's mostly to get Firegrin up to equal level with the rest of us; it also allows us to spend some time in the battlegrounds without sacrificing levels. So far, it's working. Wyrmm and Cargarios are holding at 39, while Alamein is at 38, just a couple bars from 39. Firegrin has progressed rapidly to 35, so it's not like we'll be waiting long.

Alamein has progressed mostly through running quests in Desolace; now she's starting on Stranglethorn Vale as well. These have proven to be solid places to move up quickly; the only challenge is to stop at 39.

Guild Movement
As I've mentioned, three of us (all save Wyrmm) were in the same guild. I've been conflicted about it for a while, but amusingly it was Cargarios who decided to /gquit first. He's now currently unguilded, while Firegrin and Alamein are still members. I'm not in a rush to quit but I'll be interested to see how things move. At this point, I'm not getting a lot of value out of the experience, so we'll see what happens.

I'd had one semi-annoying experience with a guildie. He'd pinged me, wanting help transfering items between characters. I agreed, and spent a half-out shuttling back and forth between Stormwind and Ironforge. He didn't tip or anything, which I really didn't expect from a guild mate. But I was still annoyed. When we completed the last trade, he just ran away. I sent a /t back of "are you finished?" and got a response of "yep". I'm not a terribly sensitive guy, but at least a "thank you" would be a bare minimum for using up a half-hour of my gaming time.

So I was amused to see him in the Auction House a couple days later... as a member of a different guild. He said hello so we chatted for a bit. He claimed he'd been "trying out" his friend's guild. While I was watching, he /gquit and asked to be re-added to my guild. Oddly, I couldn't do it. I could select the option but he never saw anything. Not sure what the story was there... but frankly I'm not too disappointed.

Leatherworking
I've grown a bit frustrated with my leatherworking. Alamein's skill is up to 208 and she's hit a wall. There are some key patterns that she can't buy or find, like the Swift Boots. But more importantly, she can't find enough thick leather. With mobs up to 40 or so -- about what she can comfortably farm -- thick leather still seems to be a rare drop. So I can't collect enough leather to make a significant number of items. And there's just not enough profit in farming heavy leather to convert it -- I'd be better off auctioning it and buying thick leather.

Which is all fine, except that I'd prefer to do the work myself. And that just won't happen. Now that I'm at 38, I'd love to wear the Big Voodoo Robe, but I stubbornly refuse to buy it at auction. I want to have it say on the label... and that's going to take a bit of time.

I do think though that I'm going to make a set of +agility/+stamina armor for Alamein. I don't want to respec; she'll stay a caster/healer druid. But for grinding mobs -- especially shooters and casters who aren't really rootable -- she can do much better in cat form. Now if I can just figure out how to get the bag space to hold the extra armor...

Guilded Cage

Alamein joined a guild. I'd been looking for one for a while, and the opportunity presented itself. It's tough to know how to choose one. How do you know how the guild works? It's probably different if you're rapidly approaching the upper levels, or if you're hoping to join one of the premiere raiding guilds on your Realm. But for a casual, mid-level player, what's the right choice?

Of course, it starts with knowing what you're looking for. I'm never going to be a hardcore anything in WoW, so that rules the biggest, most aggressive guilds out. I'd really like a guild where I can enjoy spending time with the members. Helping one another out is crucial. But foremost, I'd like an enjoyable, mature, relaxed, humorous group of people. Finding that can be difficult, and I'm convinced the only way to learn for sure is to try a guild for a while and see what happens.

I'll admit to one bias: I can't join a guild if I don't like the name. Some are just silly; there's one big, interesting guild named "WoW The Musical." They're probably a fine guild but I'm just enough of a roleplayer that I can't abide by that. I also don't like the pseudo-clever names ("Unreal Reality"). And there are plenty of smaller guilds that have much worse names; I can remember one I've seen named "guild name here" or something like that. Sigh. Shallow of me, I know, but if that name will be beneath my own name, I want it to be respectable.

There were a few guilds I was casually checking out, like "Carpe Caseum" (silly, but latin, so it's cool) and "Neutralist Order". But then an invite came from "THE REPUBLIC UNION". The names not bad (if you can forgive the SHOUTING) but more importantly, Cargarios had joined the guild some time back. I know things had been mostly good for him, so I signed up. I believe that was about a week ago.

Since then? It's been OK. I have yet to ask for or receive any help. A couple times, I've gone over to help out with another group members' work, in both cases a group led by an officer. The first time was interesting. I'm not sure of the area, but it involves hunting naga underwater near a shipwreck. He sent a note asking for help, and for us to pick up water breathing pots at the AH. Cargarios and I responded, got the pots, and came to lend a hand. It wasn't too bad, and the officer gave me a golden dragonhawk pet as a thank you (as well as paying for the pots). Nice, and I felt like my time was appreciated anyway.

The second time was this weekend, for a group that wanted to run Stromgarde Keep. That was... interesting. The same officer asked for help (via a tell, not guild chat) as he was looking for a healer. I was in Kalimdor at the time, but he said "no problem, I'll hire a warlock to summon you." Okaaaay. So I joined up. We had a 5-man, with four guildies (me, a newly-joined warrior, and two hunters) as well as the warlock, who decided to stick around. But then he ran into a few others (both our guild and others) who wanted to run it, so the officer jumped out and started another group. (Fortunately with a priest -- so I'm not trying to heal 7 on my own.) So now we have two four-mans trying to run our way through the keep.

The chaos was inevitable. No way to coordinate pulls or to get organized at all. Sheer numbers helped in most places, but at one point we somehow aggro'd a building's worth of ogres -- maybe six or seven. That was a wipe. And then we kept going.

The worst part though was that the officer's group was doing all the pulling. We'd finish a battle and they would instantly (and sometimes rashly) pull again. That meant that are party was getting zero loot or exp. Not cool. The kicker was when they grabbed two chests before we had a chance. The first one was maybe OK, but by the second one it feels like we're getting ninja'd.

So our smaller team decided to split off. The new-member warrior seemed to know her stuff well, and we went with her lead. That was a lot more effective, and at least we were getting exp and loot. I didn't have many quests in the area (we had completed everything that was shareable) so I was just trying to help out. That was OK. But then our guild officer reconnected with us, and wanted to do a quest that took us up a tower. No fault of his, but that just sucked; twice we had a crowd of ogres show up and take us out. (The two hunters could feign death and escape.) It was really late so on the second death, I said that I had to go to sleep, and rezzed at the spirit healer.

So how do I feel? The guild officer (who I'm intentionally not naming) seems like a decent enough guy. But he does have a tendency to give orders rather than ask questions, which can rub the wrong way. And this marks the second time in a week when he's requested me to help him with quests that I don't have. In this case, I gave up an evening of leveling (which would have got me halfway to 38, maybe) in order to get perhaps 2000xp and 90 silver's worth of loot. A bit disappointing.

The guild has potential, though right now it's dominated by a few strong personalities. It needs to become more of a group thing, or it won't quite work. We'll see how it goes.