There's a special place in hell for monsters like me.

I think I just had the saddest experience in all of WoW.

Though my hunter has been level 100 for a few weeks already, I've pretty much just been winging it in LFR, never changing from the talents I used to level and definitely never brushing up on which pets give what new buffs. This weekend, I finally decided to update my stable with all the necessary raid buffs and the most attractive skins, and I headed over to the Jade Forest to get myself a pretty chocolate-colored stag.

Maneuvering through the canopy to touch down in the grassy lands of eastern Pandaria, I surveyed my surroundings to find my prospective animal companion. Almost immediately, I came upon a Shrine Elk standing amongst the trees that was taking its time to pick tiny bites at the grass in a glade void of any apparent danger. I took it as a sign that it was the first stag that I saw and had already decided not to look any further when I noticed a tinier yet identically-colored deer hanging around close by. Obviously, it was my target's child, and I hesitated setting up my trap for a second, but I had plenty more pets to tame that day, and my desire to get my task over with was most likely the driving force behind my ultimate determination that the fawn looked old enough to get by without its mother.

And so I proceeded to tame the elk, an act that would ultimately end in great sadness because I forgot a couple important elements of the situation. One, if I tried to tame a doe with its child nearby, the child would come and attempt to defend its mother despite having no chance of winning. But no matter. I didn't need to hurt the fawn; I would just feign death after I finished taming. Two, after I tamed a creature, I would have a fucking pet, so before I could even feign, my newly incorporated minion saw that I was being attacked, turned right around, and killed its own child.

There I was, standing in a clearing with a loyal new charge, sick with horror at the tragedy I had just facilitated. In my many years as a hero/errand runner of the Alliance, I may have slaughtered plenty of animals, accepted work as a strikebreaker, and accidentally assassinated undercover agents of my own team, but I have never felt more horrified at myself than when I forced a mother to kill its young, all for a 3% buff to versatility, a stat universally accepted as the least arousing. It was enough to make me question the benefit of a combat style in which I am the cause for sad events like this one. Is the life of a hunter worth such a high cost in misery?

...

Well yea, my main is a warlock, but that's a different kind of misery. The good kind. For serious.

-Avia.

Relearning my class for the hundredth time.

Like every patch in WoW history, this week brought what else but warlock changes, and once again, the forum locks have to sift through the wreckage of our cluster bombed specs and figure out how to deal respectable damage without hating our play styles and our lives. During heroic farm on Tuesday, my fellow guildie lock and I compared our damage with each other's using a veritable flowchart of different specialization and talent combinations in an attempt to find the ideal choices for each encounter. Feel free to pick any of the following easy to understand spec guidelines, and enjoy leading the middle of the pack.

Affliction:

SB:H and pray for shards if no 4pc.





Cata padding douchenozzle

Demonology:

Doomguard talent with extra doomguard.





2-target Cata turning into 1-target because a mob moved






DS glyph 2DB + CW + SF
DS glyph 4DB
attempt 4DB but have to move for a mechanic, miss the end of DS glyph, and then flip a table
SSAA 2x + CMAA = 2FPS
OMGWTFBBQNSFW

Destruction:







CB all day erry day


Good luck, friends!

-Avia.

I decided to get Wildstar.

Stormtalon is the new Stormrage! Hopefully, the queue times will die down after the first couple of weeks. Feel free to find me on the Exiled faction hopping around with my little Avia bunny ears. Yes, I chose Aurin, essentially the Wildstar equivalent of blood elves, the stereotypical pick of female WoW players, but it wasn't my first choice. I was all set to play a human like I always do until I heard the full-on American deep South accent that is characteristic of the humans of the Exile. No offense to anyone with Southern accents; it just isn't me. I'm not quite sure this is either. However, what is decidedly me and strange of this new game to already know is that I picked the Path that seemed the most interesting and it happened to be the one that has the ability to summon people.

Forever a(lock).

-Avia.

I have many skills, none of them profitable IRL.

My guild is taking a little mini-vacation from main raiding, which means that for the week of the 27th, I am available for rent.

Need help downing some new heroics? For the right price, you can have a 581 ilvl warlock making berserk timers and mechanics less relevant for your raid! Can't solo a mount boss? Voidwalkers can solo everything! Hopefully, the hunters in my raid aren't selling themselves this week as well. Are you a PvPer instead? I'll carry you in 2s and shoot you up to 2200 500 rating no problem! Or did your usual roleplaying partner go M.I.A. and you need someone to cyber with in the Deeprun Tram? ... We'll negotiate.

Now taking offers!

-Avia.

Let's talk alpha notes.

It's an exciting time right now because of Warlords of Draenor alpha notes. There is plenty of speculation, badgering of devs' Twitters, and crying about precious removed spells. That doesn't mean I'm not crying, because I definitely am. However, in RP Your Life! fashion, let's take a step back and look at the trends that these changes are indicating for the development of WoD.

- It now takes a lunch break to read mage talents.

- Healers are panicking about Cata-style healing when it was AWESOME.

In the Convert to Raid and FinalBossTV interviews, Celestalon assured healers that healing in WoD would not become the fight against OOMing that it was in Cata, but that period of time when healers had to think about which spell to use, not only to match the situation but to also preserve their mana, was the most engaging. The WoD movement away from critical burst healing back to triage seems like the perfect opportunity to bring that cerebral kind of healing back, but it's not looking like they're willing to push healers that far.

- The devs can't decide what to tell us their ultimate goal is.

If the new Mythic raiding is balanced around having at least one of each class, then why remove utility like healthstones and Innervate? If they want to remove unique utility so a raid doesn't require a specific class, then why leave in things like Gateway? If they leave things in like Gateway because they want to balance around having at least one of each class, then why remove utility like healthstones and Innervate? If...

- The devs might not even be talking to Mythic raiders.

Even after their big claim that the move to 20-man raiding would be the epitome of balanced raid tuning, it doesn't even look like many of the changes that they're making are geared towards Mythic at all. The homogenization of classes and making sure that certain class abilities aren't required are definitely safeguards for 10-man Normal and Heroic raids. Plus, when a shadow priest asks whether or not s/he needs to carry separate sets of gear for multi-target and single-target fights, the answer that I gleaned from Celestalon's appeasing "No, but..." was actually "Yes, but not for casuals," which he could have just said outright. I was hoping that FinalBossTV's interview would be more enlightening for end-game raiders, but there were very few instances in which the crew pushed the devs to a point where they were forced to defend their choices and explain their reasoning in a deeper manner. Why indeed is a certain DPS class retaining a raid-wide CD while others are having theirs taken away?

Watch your raid spot, everyone. The mages are after it.

-Avia.

Edit: Added a link to the FinalBossTV interview.

Boring times call for desperate measures.

After much soul-searching and contemplation of what it really means to farm the same content for six months, I've decided to finally commit the highest betrayal of my class just to have something to do.

I'm going to level a mage.

Sure, I could level plenty of other things, but unless I want to foolishly run head-first into a mob and start whacking at it like a cretin, what is there that I don't already have? I could make another lock, but it'd be like a sad younger brother of my main that never gets to play with anything first, never gets the same high expectations, and ends up the fifth best realtor at a strip mall agency.

But, after all these years, I'm finally going to work through the reasons that underlie my apprehension to "be" a mage: the fact that they aren't willing to go to greater lengths for magical power, their obsession with rules and bureaucracy, their dainty hands. Can I get over my deep-seated prejudices and embrace a new way of life?

In an effort to ease my conscience, I turned to my fellow warlocks for advice on how to resolve my issues. Besides the usual unhelpful assertions that it's just a game, the most intriguing suggestion I got was to just completely abandon my identity as a prideful warlock and view mages as, not better or worse, but different. She claimed that the two classes get along fine. Suddenly, my career-long belief that mages and warlocks look down on each other was shattered! Have I been living a delusion this whole time, a shameful bigot who unnecessarily shut myself off from others because of petty differences?

Well, it's time to end all of that. I'm opening myself up to new experiences and new ways of thinking. The Kirin Tor aren't magical dictators; they offer guidance and protect us from succumbing to the intoxicating power of magic. The mages of Stormwind are my peers, and Dalaran is my capital. It's an exciting journey with brand new eyes, and I'm going to take it!

Right after I play some Diablo 3.

-Avia.

Making friends in the military starts with your sub-unit.

What it felt like:

 

There were plenty of people in our battalion but only a few of us in our platoon. Three warlocks against the forces of Orgrimmar defending their corrupt warchief. If that's all the lieutenant thought we needed to succeed in our mission, then so be it.

A little away from us, the healers huddled around a pile of complicated charts and graphs, their officer briefing the new priest recruit on his assignments. The tanks seemed to have their strategy set and were sitting quietly, keeping an eye on the enemy that marched in the distance. Meanwhile, one of the death knights had fallen asleep, and the other melee were taking turns teabagging him. How ironic.

"You alright?" asked a fellow warlock, sitting next to me.

"Yea," I replied, a little too quickly. My fortified rations sat unmoving in my stomach.

He patted me on the back with a heavy hand. I felt some of the anxiety dissipate under the pressure. "Just do your job," he said, staring off in the same direction as the tanks. "It's important to get the mines down before they reach the ranged troops. Just kill the mines, and if you're still alive at the end... Well, that'll really impress the officers."

"Ok," I said. "Got it." Just stay alive. Stay alive.

"Ready check!" yelled the lieutenant.

We all leapt to our feet, the death knight swatting away someone's crotch as he did so. I adjusted my staff and my shoulders with shaking hands.

"Get into positions! We engage in twelve seconds!"

Falling in line next to the other warlock, I looked over at him. He caught my gaze and smiled before turning towards the boss, a potion at the ready in his hand. I clutched mine too and faced forward.

It was time to prove myself.

What really happened:

 

[warlockchannel] Fellow warlock: Just stay alive.
[warlockchannel] Me: Kk.

-Avia.

The Lament of the Hotfixed Raider

In all the realms of music, literature, and art, many have waxed on about the great human tragedies: lost love, mortality, our sense of purpose and how it drives us to success or a life ending in invalidating failure. Yet, there is one thing in this world that trumps every teenage heartbreak, every promised promotion that was snatched away. Nothing can compare to the soul-crushing fall from the top that is...

a massive and unjustified nerf to your spec.

Oh how the nerfbat beating down on my grief-stricken heart feels more like the sharp twist of a knife into the side of Demonology! Surely, such an OP trinket was bound to be readjusted, but why the unfair treatment of my poor imps? I cannot imagine it is deserved, for a two-fold punishment of my damage now makes me hit like a wet noodle indeed. Oh WOE is the fate of my spec, my broken spec! How will I ever continue? How will I find the will to raid on?

Nevermind. It's all good.

-Avia.

Remember all that bitching I did? Scratch that.

Guess what I'm doing?

While I sustain that Blizzard gets way too into talent tree changes, I can't say that I'm as ambivalent as I was in my last post because I am so fucking excited to get new demons.

I was kind of hoping that this Grimoire of Supremacy was actually evolving our current minions and making our long-time friends more powerful. However, from looking at the talent, it seems that these demons are completely new and unrelated to our existing minions since there is no counterpart for the felhunter. Nevertheless, I am super excited to see what kinds of abilities they have, and the first thing I do when Mists of Pandaria goes live is pulling out my new voidlord and establishing a trustful and loving relationship.

My Picks for Talent Highlights:

Bear Hug - Instant, 1 min CD, Melee attack that stuns the target and deal 10% of the Druid's health in damage every 1 sec for 3 sec. Effect cancelled if the Druid moves away, attacks, or takes any other action. Using this ability activates Bear form.
AWWWWWWwWWwWWwWwwwwwww....

Divine Star - Instant, 30 sec CD, Fire a divine star in front of you, travelling 20 yds doing damage to all enemies and healing all friendly targets in its path. After reaching its destination, it will return to you also dealing damage and healing all targets in its path.
Like a shoooooting star! Effective or not, it's going to look badass.

Sacrificial Pact - Instant, 5 min CD, Your demon sacrifices itself to prevent all damage you would take for 10 sec.
I get a pally bubble! Yea, my minion has to die for it, but I assure you, he does it willingly. All of my minions and I are committed through a pact of blood, and their sacrifice is for the benefit of our dark contract. It's also reminiscent of the old voidwalker Sacrifice spell, of which I was such a fan that I got the icon tattooed on the back of my neck as a symbol of our deep connection that persists through death.

If you haven't guessed that I'm crazy by now, you're probably just as nuts as I am.

-Avia.

Mists of Pandaria confirmed. I is sad... panda.

BlizzCon is happening right now, and Mists of Pandaria is officially going to be the next expansion. There has been talk of Pandaren for months since the discovery of Blizz's trademark for the "Mists..." name, but I'm actually surprised and disappointed that what I had thought was a red herring is actually the premise of our next expansion and undoubtedly 1-2 years of my life. Pandas? T_T Half the community is seizing with joy, and the other half has the same face as I do.

Already some of the changes they are revealing are irking me, like their renewed obsession with talent trees and how they had made it too streamlined for Cataclysm. Now they want to reintroduce player choice and hybridization even though they're really just wasting their time. All the theorycrafters at Elitist Jerks and mmo-champion are going to break out their slide rules and in a matter of days, post the specs that players are supposed to use if they raid, just like they do every time there is a talent tree change. It doesn't even intrigue me anymore, but of course they haven't released any lock trees yet...

So far, the monk's food buff racial seems a little OP (double all stats from well-fed), but what actually disturbs me is the fact that they wear leather and are tank/healer/DPS. This means that while druids will now have to compete for gear and priests already share loot with mages and locks, shamans and especially paladins have no competition. If you play a priest, you know how God-awful (har dee har har) it is to gear up when you're rolling/bidding against the ranged DPS, and Firelands made it even worse by taking spirit off of almost everything. Now druids are joining them in their pitiful situation. I always felt bad for priests, but now I cry for my(alt)self.

I'll post more news (hopefully in a less whaaambulance tone) when they announce lock changes. So far, they've only mentioned that they're revamping the soul shard system. Again. Good.

-Avia.

Drain Life Hotfix Prompts RP Worthy Debates

In a recent hotfix, Blizzard decided to implement the nerf to Drain Life that was originally slated for Patch 4.2 a bit earlier than the player base expected it. The warlock community was already up in arms when it saw the proposed change and not because it was an unwarranted decrease in overall DPS that would be detrimental to raid performance. Rather, the issue was the replacement of Drain Life in our rotation by Shadow Bolt, a decidedly less “Affliction-y” spell.

This has led to criticism by players who find the complaining ridiculous as the warlocks in question are arguing about what is basically a cosmetic issue, much like the numerous threads of petitioners for green fire that existed before Fel Flame appeared. As a warlock, I have a vested interest in the debates, but even as a general player, I find the arguments valid even outside of an RP immersion-ist context. There are many reasons that players choose the specs that they do. The major one for damage classes is maximizing DPS, and every raider and/or Recount whore has this priority in mind. Another is utility, i.e. PVE vs. PVP or situational advantages for certain abilities like Priests’ Archangel.

But another important factor in choosing specs is play style. No matter how strongly someone believes that spec is irrelevant as long as s/he is pumping out as much DPS as s/he possibly can on a boss, as soon as the raid leader wants a player to try something different, everyone gets defensive at least a little bit about their choices. Whether they use ElitistJerks to justify their talent points or cite special fight mechanics that make a certain spec superior to another, we all want to play how we like.

In such a highly visual game like WoW, cosmetics can play a role in whether or not we enjoy playing by affecting what we have to stare at for hours at a time. If something is bothering us about how we play, it can nag at the psyche like there’s a huge hunter pet’s ass in our field of vision that we wish we could do something about. It isn’t always about being overly resistant to change, though it definitely can be. Sometimes, we just want our characters to fit in with our ideas of our virtual world.

Ultimately, what fits in with the lore and mechanics of WoW are up to Blizzard. If they decide that Affliction locks should use Shadow Bolt as filler instead of Drain Life, it’s a subtle difference we have to accept until they deem our arguments valid. But it doesn’t stop us from putting our arguments out there. Every class has had issues like this, from some druids wanting perma-tree back to the validity of dwarf mages. Despite what all the trolls may think is a ridiculous waste of time, these debates are as serious as the game that we’re arguing about, and that differs for everyone.

-Avia rhymes with Moldavia.