Unbearably HoT

    While eight million other WoW bloggers dutifully report the patch notes and lament the various nerfs and tweaks, I choose to spare any readers here from the same list they’ll eventually see in their own little Download window. There are, naturally, a few things I’d like to highlight and point out to my fellow dr00ds, but first, I’d like to explain my own goals. In an earlier article I sneered at the lack of challenge the game’s been presenting lately, the devaluing of epic items, the changes to the opening of the Sunwell event, the loss of raiding perks and the greedy me me mes! of the folks who beg Blizzard to hand out freebies so that they don’t have to put forth the effort to earn them. But before I fall prey to the siren’s call of NEW LOOTZERS and REP REWARDS, let’s take a look at what this means for raiders.

The dawning of the Sunwell is a welcome change for many raiders who’ve been farming Black Temple and Hyjal for upwards of eight months or longer. Fortunately, I’ve only been doing it since November and can’t complain too much there, but I admit that there are nights I go to sleep hearing, “THIS WORLD WILL BURN!”, cringing about having to go through four thousand pulls in Hyjal just because I somehow haven’t hit Exalted with Scale of the Sands yet. Sunwell affords us a chance to look at what could be exciting new content (although Kalecgos reminded me of, as Lycentia put it, C’thun on speed) and one day tackle a villain the likes of which we haven’t seen since…Ragnaros? Nef? The concept art featured on the linked wallpaper is ridiculously cool with exceptional detail, and while I don’t expect to see an exact rendering in game, coming somewhere close (especially if he’s massively huge) will make Kil’jaedan a fight to remember. Just don’t listen to all the Kil’jaedan soundfiles; the dialogue sounds pathetically similar to what every other boss yells when you’re kicking his ass (with the exception of Shahraz).

So new content. Learning new content as a progression guild means going balls out on consumables (food buffs, scrolls, flasks, potions, sharpening stones, runes of warding) and turning a blind eye to the repair costs you periodically incur. To put that in perspective, when I die wearing all my tanking gear (after, presumably, tanking), I’m looking at anywhere between a 7 to 8 gold repair bill. Wipe five times and I’m looking at a 35 gold repair bill. Spend an entire week of wiping on one encounter? Probably something like 50+ gold a night. It’s daunting, and it’s frustrating, but with the expansion of daily quests allowed and what will be a furious rep grind with the Shattered Sun Offensive, I look at it this way:

25 quests * appx. 11 gold each = 275 gold per day

275 gold per day * 3 level 70′s = 825 gold per day

Not too shabby. Even doing six or seven quests a day on each toon will likely sustain my raiding needs indefinitely, and making the extra effort to do each of them (with the convenience of pairing my 70′s with Lycentia’s) might net me a few more epic mounts as well. Granted, I also have the time, currently, to do all that farming without it coinciding with my regular raiding schedule; many folks, however, do not. To take the heat off their raiders in such a competitive environment, many guilds provide repair money and/or consumables for their regulars. <Drow>, the top progression guild on Doomhammer (to which we are number 2), was farming BT and Hyjal for so long that they were able to sell attunements and rot loot drops in Tier 5 content. The proceeds of all their mindless work will directly fund their grind to Kil’jaedan. <Singularity> hasn’t had the opportunity to do that.

    There’s been a little guild drama. In the past two weeks, three players have left for varying reasons (complications in real life explaining a few) and we’ve been scrambling to fill their raid positions in time for Sunwell. As we only raid two or three days a week now with BT/Hyjal clears down to two days, many of the hardcore raiders have been itching for something to fill their schedules. All in all, morale seemed a little bit low and folks appeared to be turning inward for their own class needs rather than looking to support the guild. When I’m in, I’m all or nothing, and I’m committed to helping <Singularity> succeed in whatever capacity I can. Sometimes this means troubleshooting personnel issues for the raid leaders so they’re less stressed out. Sometimes it’s just listening. Sometimes it just means being the best tank I can be and excelling at my class. But for Sunwell, I wanted to do something different to prove that one person, with the unwitting help of a few others, can effect considerable change in a guild setting, and that if one person can do it, the combined efforts of 25+ would seriously fine tune our working mechanisms.

Thus began Project Sunwell. Since the flasks purchasable with Marks of the Illidari will now apparently work in the Sunwell, this is what I sought to provide, relying mostly on my own diligent farming, for the guild’s first night in Sunwell:

• 19 Mana Potion Injectors—one for every caster and healer
• 10 Fel Mana Potions for every hunter
• 10 Elixirs of Major Agility for every melee DPS class
• 10 Ironshield Potions for every tank (except me, LOL!)
• 10 Brilliant Wizard Oils—one for every caster
• 9 Brilliant Mana Oils—one for every healer
• 1 stack of class appropriate food for every raider

As of right now, I only need another stack or two of healer type foods (easily done), the oils, and the Ironshields. Fortunately, I had a little bit of help from a few people (most notably Brand and Lycentia) and some later volunteers to make oils (Madara and Toinz) when I announced this today on the <Singularity> forums. I hope to spur more folks into taking initiative rather than thinking everything’s a freebie and put into perspective how long it took me, as a singular entity to farm all of those materials (and thus how quickly we could do it if EVERYONE pitched in). I want to win. I want us to be fully prepared and ready to rock, and hopefully with this incentive, we’ll have a lot more grins rather than grim determination.

So if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t updated recently, now you know. With that out of the way I can start fully planning out what I need from Badge vendors (I have pointedly put this off despite the fact that I know Runy needs DPS gear and my paladin could use some more fun things for Retribution) and gleefully anticipating all the new non-combat pets.