Married IRL

Yesterday, Bansidhe and Fio paid their first official visit to the D.E.H.T.A.  And while I find their cause just as valid as in Beta, I fear that it does not get to the root of the problem.

Therefore, I am proud to announce the formation of a new activist organization, the A.S.P.C.A. - Azerothian Society for Persistent and Consistent Anatomy.

In our world today, millions of quest mobs suffer an egregious lack of critical organs.  Boars roam the farmlands, turning a jaundiced yellow from lack of livers.  Nearly naked dinosaurs roam Un’goro with, at best, a single scale vainly attempting to preserve their flesh, never mind their dignity.  There are even numerous examples of grotesque caricatures of creatures roaming the landscape - half (or more!) of a species’ population existing only as mysteriously mobile inflated balloons of skin and sinew, lacking flesh itself.

Indeed, these bizaare circumstances are not limited to beasts!  In Hillsbrad, an entire community scrapes together a precarious existence where only the privileged have anything more than a shapeless mass for a face.

Statistical studies have shown that nearly fifty percent of all quest mobs may suffer from a lack of critical organs.  Furthermore, this evidence points to a critical threat to those species beyond the obvious problems that come from living without skin.  Adventurers looking to secure their own existence routinely have to slaughter large populations of creatures in order to fulfill even relatively small requests for a home cooked meal.  After all, if you only had to kill three pigs to find three that had a face, there would be no need to butcher the ten (or more!) others that routinely are required to make a bowl of soup.

Here at the ASPCA, we believe that all quest mobs have the right to an equal number of organs.  For just a few bytes per day, Blizzard could alleviate the silent suffering of these misbegotten multitudes.  Only by working together can we end this intolerable situation.  Please join me in giving a voice to those that cannot protest themselves - probably because they don’t have a mouth or a tongue or something.

I know, I haven’t been posting much recently, but with all the recent changes to WoW and our hiatus from raiding until WotLK is in progress, there hasn’t been a whole lot to address.  However, I would like to take a moment to talk about the election that’s just finished, with Barack Obama winning.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Why do this now, when I’m tired of hearing about it?”  Well, I think it deserves one last look in retrospect, now that the pressure of having to choose is gone.  People can think about things now without having to feel like they have to jump up and defend their candidate, and hopefully the knee-jerk reactions will be toned down.

First off, let me give you where I am coming from, in general, so if you wish weigh my views in the light of whatever bias I may have, you can do so.  I’m registered as a Republican, but I’m probably closer to what most would consider a Libertarian or a Constitutionalist.  I think the government should be as small as feasible, tax me and everyone else as little as possible, supply short-term aid to those in financial crisis, and keep the roads, infrastructure, etc working.  I also think the government should stay the hell out of my bedroom, my marriage, and as much as humanly possible, my wallet.  I believe that people should have as much freedom as possible, but with that freedom they should be responsible for their actions and choices.

Where does this put me on the hotbutton issues?  I think that businesses should be given tax breaks as much as possible.  If it could be implemented, I would love to see a flat percentage tax for everyone, one for individuals, one for businesses - no more arguing about earned income credits, etc.  I think that economic aid of any sort should be race-neutral and based on economics.  The poor white kid from the same ghetto as the poor black kid should have the same shot to compete.  I don’t support abortion except in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.  It’s not a religious issue, really, it’s more of a responsibility issue.  Having a baby or not is a woman’s choice.  I just think that the choice is made when you decide to have sex, especially if you’re having unprotected sex.  If you’re not being careful, then this baby you’ve created shouldn’t be the one to pay the price.  I think that the right of individuals to keep and bear arms is critical to the underlying foundation of our government - I’m not the type that thinks we need automatic weapons and hand grenades, but a semi auto rifle or pistol is certainly within the bounds of reason.  I don’t like gay “marriage” only in the sense that it is using the word “marriage,” and I’m a stickler for definitions.  Call it Civil Union or Partnership or Hoobadabbadism or whatever, and give it 100% of the same rights and responsibilities, and I’m on board.

So, you can by that where I trend.  Right on most financial issues, kind of over the board on social issues.

Now, on to the actual discussion of what happened:

Both McCain and Obama are proven liars.  Obama, admittedly, has fewer lies and blunders on record, but that’s simply because he’s got little record in the first place, and has three decades of political shenanigans to catch up on.  No matter who won last night, in my opinion at least, we elected an untrustworthy, unqualified person to be President.

So why do I say that we got the slightly worse option?  I would have preferred to see control of Congress split from the executive branch.  So basically, I wanted either Obama to win and the senate/house to flip, or McCain to win, and the senate/house to remain as it is.  Unfortunately, the Democrats control it all right now.  The only check Republicans have left is a filibuster in the Senate.

What it boils down to is that in this economic crisis, we need to make sure that everyone is on the same page, and that no one group controls everything.  Splitting control of the government would have ensured that one side HAD to talk to the other to get anything done.  With one party dominating, there are few, if any, checks on their initiatives.  They’ve got a blank check, and in a crisis like we are facing right now, I think that any one group with that amount of free reign is a bad idea.

ADDENDUM:

People have asked for examples of both parties’ lies.  Off the top of my head:

McCain - Half-truths about voting record w/ Bush, lies about pork put into his bills.  For more, here’s a random link I found.  Some of the entries are pretty silly and just propaganda, but some look to be valid:
http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Count_the_Lies

Obama - Pledged in writing, along with McCain, to take public election funds and adhere to the new ethical guidelines for campaign finance.  Last minute, turned down those funds and thus was able to raise about four times what McCain raised because he wasn’t hobbled by the new restrictions.  Lied about campaign donations over the past 12 years from an indicted business man (money laundering, wire fraud, extortion) notorius for working his political connections to those ends.  For more (same disclaimer as the other one, some of it is obviously silly, but some are valid, you can probably tell the difference):
http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/fashion-shows/

Ok this is driving me nuts.  I’ve tried 8 times now to post a new thread to the Blizzard beta priest forums, and each time I keep getting this stupid error.

I can reply to someone’s thread no problems, but create a new one and it says I’m logged in under the wrong acct.  But when I try to log in with the beta info, it doesn’t accept it.

SO:  You all get to see my frustrated post to the designer for priests.  Until I can get it posted there.

ARG!

[Suggestion] Race Change/Option

Ok Blizz, I give up.

Now that you’ve taken away most of our class uniqueness by giving all other classes mana regen, AoE heals, no more race specific spells, etc and you went back on that whole “We’re never going to allow PvE to PvP server transfers”, give it up already.

Give us a quest, give us an option, LET US CHANGE OUR D*&^ RACE ALREADY.

Let me tell you a story:

Way back when I was a little noob, who was just experiencing an MMO for the first time ever, I was told, “Hey we need healers if we’re ever going to raid MC!”  So I left my 60 rogue on the shelf and rolled a priest.

I was alliance, when I asked advice on the best race to pick for an alliance priest?  “Dwarf, hands down.”  The magic words were FEAR WARD.  [u]At the time[/u], it was the best race to be, raiding wise.

Ok, I can do that.  Other cool things came up, and there were some dwarf racials that I kind forgot about until BC (Stoneskin?), but here I was, wanting a human because they had a cool casting look, spirit, and hell, that rep bonus was great for the rep grind… but no no no, you want to get a spot?  Roll dwarf.

Fine, I rolled dwarf.  Because it was the BEST CHOICE I had at the time.
___

Now 2 years later I’m STUCK with a fugly priest that doesn’t PvP, a little wiser in how the game is played and what my class can actually do, and while I could Change her name for $10, no chance to change her race.

After the Fear Ward nerf, we should have seen this coming.  But then, my priest was well into T4/T5 raiding with my guild, my friends, and there really was no choice in taking the time off to reroll another race.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess I’m not the only one who was stuck in this predicament.  The character has accomplished so much and spent so much [u]time[/u] in the game, why should I or anyone have to reroll to get the other race?  If you boo boo’d on your name, BAM, $10, it’s changed.

It’s not going to break the game.  You can only change to a race that has that class, etc.  Maybe you can or cannot change factions.  Make it similar to the character realm transfer cooldown, or make it a one time deal.  I don’t care.  I can’t see anything BAD from something like this.  The only possible exploit I can think of is if someone leveled Human then switched races.  Well fine, take away 10% of their reps if they make the switch.  They aren’t as “Diplomatic” as they once were.

Come on guys.

Please, make it happen.

Some how, some way, someone there WILL SEE THIS.  I hope.  If you can post this to the beta priest forums for me, please, be my guest.  I just want to see this happen (hey, they did PvP to PvE!)

So, I haven’t done a druid post in a while, I figure it’s about time!

Today, we are going to be looking at Glyphs.  Apparently, in Lich King, you can tattoo your ass to make you more powerful.  Awesome.

THE BASICS:

As of the current build, each player can have 3 major and 3 minor glyphs.  There is an ability in the game (though not currently attainable by any known means) that allows you to unlock an “extra” glyph slot.  It is not specified if it is major, minor, or could be used for either.  Most speculate that this extra slot will only be available to Scribes, to give them an advantage the same way other professions have BoP items, etc.

Unfortunately, most of the glyphs that have been found in the game are not actually implemented, they’re simply accessible by parsing the game files.  So it’s not certain which are major and which are minor yet.  We have been given the rough guideline that “Minor glyphs will have a cosmetic effect, or allow you to cast a spell without a reagent, or something like that.”  (Paraphrasing from a blue post I can’t find for the life of me right now).  So, here’s a quick look at things as they stand.  I’m separating them into categories based on the spell the Glyph affects, and I’m including my initial impressions of each.  Disclaimer: these are from the perspective of a raider.  If you want to talk about PvP usefulness in depth, feel free, but I don’t have a good perspective on that. 

BALANCE:

Glyph of Entangling Roots - This seems like it could be worthwhile if you have a spare slot.  I’ve never actually seen math on how much damage Entangling Roots can hold against, so I’d have to try it to see if the effect is noticeable.  Now that we can use roots indoors, this could have some application in dungeons/raids, but for the most part seems like it would be a PvP/Soloing ability.

Glyph of Hurricane - I honestly don’t see this being useful.  It appears that the slowing effect is only while the mobs are in the hurricane itself.  It might have limited application in PvP, but I don’t see it being that great anywhere else.

Glyph of Insect Swarm - Again, this might be useful in PvP, but in a raid setting at least, the 2% miss on a target is worth far more than the extra damage.

Glyph of Moonfire - This one is interesting.  Your inital moonfire hits will be for almost nothing, but it significantly increases the DoT portion.  Some lunch-napkin math here in the office seems to indicate that you’ll do more total damage with the glyph, as long as your crit is < 50% or thereabouts.  Plus, there may be some synergy with the Glyph of Starfire (see below).

Glyph of Starfire - So, with this glyph, your 3 second cast Starfire adds 3 seconds onto the duration of your Moonfire effect.  Factor in Nature’s Grace and spell haste, and that means that you could toss on one moonfire and theoretically keep it up for an entire fight.  Heck, if they don’t cap the duration of moonfire, you could possibly see a moonfire with a duration of 30-60 seconds on a boss by the time he’s dead.  Add in the Glyph of Moonfire, and you’ve got a powerful DOT that pretty much self-renews.  This could end up being the bread and butter of level 80 raiding for Balance.

Glyph of Starfall - Most of you haven’t been able to play with Starfall yet.  because of the way it functions, there’s debate about this Glyph.  Starfall drops 20 stars maximum on targets within 30 yards of you, for 10 seconds.  If this glyph increases the duration without increasing the maximum number of stars dropped, it will be useless in most AOE situations, which is where Starfall shines.  If, however, the maximum stars are “silently” increased in proportion, as if it were a DoT “ticking” an extra time, it would go up to 24 stars total.  This could be great for AOEing, or it could just suck, we’ll see.

Glyph of Wrath - Pretty self explanatory.  50% pushback prevention, useful for PvP mostly.

Glyph of Thorns - Reduces the casting cost of Thorns?  Seriously, even if it made thorns free…yeah, I can probably find something better for that slot.

Glyph of Innervate - I want whoever came up with this to have my babies.  Seriously.  The only question that comes to mind - if you innervate yourself, do you get 120% of the innervate effect, or is the smaller one overwritten?  This might lead to druids “trading” innervates.

FERAL:

Glyph of Growl - Less chance for the mob to resist a taunt?  Win!

Glyph of Mangle - In my admittedly limited experience, this seems like it would help both DPS and tanking by keeping the debuff up longer, thus requiring less energy/rage over a fight to generate damage & threat.  My feral math fu is not the best, so I can’t give an in depth analysis, but this seems like a pretty decent glyph.

Glyph of Rake - “Prevent from fleeing” isn’t too specific, but I’m assuming this will put a rooting effect on Rake.  Could be useful in PvP, or for stopping runners in PvE.

Glyph of Rip - Feral DPS mathings is weak!  No idea, ferals, you tell me!

Glyph of Shred - Again, my Feral DPS is the weakest point of my druid knowledge.  My only observation is that stunned/incap targets are far more common in PvP, so it may be geared more that way.

Glyph of Swipe - This seems like it would be great for tanking, helping to hold multiple targets on the druid.

Glyph of the White Bear and Glyph of the Red Lynx - Cosmetic, but cool!

RESTO:

Glyph of Healing Touch - The key here is whether or not the healing coefficent for healing touch is reduced along with the casting time.  If so, the glyph is utter trash.  If not, you would trade mana efficiency for a moderately higher HPS.  Still, with Nourish now available, I doubt it will be super useful.

Glyph of Rebirth - This could be a little useful, but only once every 20 minutes (or whatever the battle rez cooldown ends up being).  I’d pass, myself.

Glyph of Regrowth - This actually looks pretty cool.  As long as you’re juggling your HoTs and cooldowns right, you could get a large boost in Regrowth.  This could help make druids more viable as tank-focus healers.

Glyph of Rejuvenation - This could be really useful as well.  +50% healing whenever the target drops below half health, as long as you have a Rejuv up.  Again, this would seem to work best on a tank or otherwise designated target.

Glyph of Swiftmend - ZOMGWTFBBQ?!  This is incredible.  This means that swiftmend can be used at almost any time as long as you have your HoT rotation going, providing a large burst heal, and not having to worry about the target dying due to sudden lack of dots immediately after.  Plus, it doesn’t interrupt your rotation for more than the cast of swiftmend itself.  Definately a winner.

Glyph of Wild Endurance - I’d probably use this if it only took a minor, or I was soloing a lot.  Just for convenience, more than anything else.

And that’s it for now!

So…. Resto4Life, eh?

My work here is done…

This is going to be somewhat brief and to the point, and I’m not going to get into specifics, because I don’t want to blast drama across the internet. However, AC as a guild has run across this situation a couple times now, and I’d like to make sure people think about things like this before they jump in.

When you are accepted as a member of a guild, and you are given the go ahead that you can raid with them if you want to, please, please think very carefully before you say “yes.”

A lot of people come into a situation thinking about all the fun and cool things that can happen joining a new guild. But then after only one or two raids of participation, something else catches their attention - a new MMO, a new alt, whatever. And then said person misses a raid or two. Then the delay game begins.

“Well, you know, I have to do X, but I should be able to raid again in a couple weeks.”

“I’m just burnt out on it right now, give me a little bit.”

“X real-life commitment is tougher than I thought, but I should be able to work it out.”

Here is the problem. Raiding guilds, especially casual ones like AC, have to maintain something of a delicate balance. A hardcore guild can recruit 30 people or so and say “we require 90% attendance.” But since we have no attendance requirements, we have to maintain enough of a raider base so that when some people don’t show up, raid can still happen. Conversely, we can’t recruit TOO many more people than a full raid, otherwise people don’t get to raid enough because they’re being switched out all the time, and get fed up and leave. It’s a balancing game, taking into account many people’s RL schedules and trying to fit them into a puzzle.

So when a casual guild accepts you, it means they are depending on you to live up to your commitment. Even more so if they have shuffled around the raiding roster or group roles in order to accommodate you. And if you hang around, not raiding, but still saying “just a little more time and I should be back on the bandwagon,” you create a problem. The guild can’t necessarily recruit to replace you, because you’re saying you will be back, and when you do people’s raiding opportunities have to get split up that much more. At the same time, when you’re not showing up, they’re stretching more and more to cover your slot, trying to keep raid momentum going while shorthanded. The problem only multiplies if two or more people start doing the same thing.

So, from a guild leader, please, please look at things from the guild’s point of view for a moment, before you decide to take the plunge. At least personally, if someone made a full effort for at least a couple/few months, and then something came up, I can understand it. But sporadic attendance, or promising you’ll be raiding real soon now, is worse than never showing up at all. It can threaten to stall a guild’s progress, which leads to more people not showing up, which exacerbates the problem, and so on. It’s a real mess to clean up.

Please don’t be That Guy.

(This has been a public service announcement from Stressed Guild Leaders of Azeroth)

Something coming soon!

I’m sure that most of you reading this have seen TJ’s post today. This is just to pitch in.

The situation: One of our guildies, Lamaa, was banned for using “unauthorized game modifications.” He’s done no such thing. If you wish to debate that point, please debate it elsewhere, on this blog we are going to trust our friend. In addition, the same day they banned him, they charged him $45 for his next 3 months of gameplay. Which they say is non-refundable.

The proposal: We want to make some noise about this. AC as a whole has a large web presence. As TJ puts it, we’re the bloggingest guild in WOW. Now, I fully admit that we here at marriedirl are a MINISCULE part of this, but hey, we’ll do what we can.

So, we wanted to draw some attention to the situation. Why? Because Lamaa can’t get a response from Blizzard, and from the horror stories I’ve heard in the past, even people who were eventually cleared still waited for weeks for the issue to get resolved. In my mind, this is unacceptable - I can see a few days, but weeks or months? That is unreasonable. So we want to flex our muscle a bit and hope that someone at Blizzard with a bit of weight to throw around will see it, and see fit to make sure Lamaa’s case gets looked at and doesn’t fall through the cracks.

Now, some people have said that this isn’t fair. Why should Lamaa get preferential treatment over any other innocent people, why should we advocate for him if we can’t propose a general solution? Well, to make an analogy, I’ve never had the education or the experience to figure out a reasonable solution to world hunger. No one really has to date, that’s why its still around. But I’ll be damned if I feel somehow guilty for buying a homeless guy a sandwich (which I’ve done on some occasions) just because I couldn’t help EVERYONE, and it wouldn’t be fair to them if this guy got preferential treatment. I’m even less likely to feel guilty if I call the person a friend.

So, if you have a blog, feel free to post Lamaa’s story. If you know anyone at Blizzard, send them this link. Or TJs might be better. Either way, if you want to help, we appreciate it. If you don’t, that’s fine too, just please don’t try to use this particular case as a soapbox for your overarching sociopolitical viewpoint.

Fio

Why, raiding SSC, just like every other Wednesday night.

Why am I typing here?

Cause SSC trash is very boring.

And Leo Trash sucks the most.

Grah!

Edit:

Bad night.  /le sigh

Ok, so that Fio’s LFWork thingie. It’s a Page…

So why did it come up like it was a post?

I’m so confused!

*is also a huge WP noob T.T*

*a huge one*