On State of the Blog Speeches:

Yup. I did exactly what every other blogger out there did, once Cataclysm came out. I started playing, and didn't stop until I hit a wall.

Oh come on, like blogging would be the first thing on YOUR mind with a new expansion out there dangling in front of you!

So, one... two? Two months in now? And I've made some impressions.

I am not pleased with the state of Bear.

In Wrath, Druids were THE tank to beat. Oh, go on, say what you will about Paladins and Warriors. Druids had the spammable AoE snap threat, massive HP pools, and more avoidance and mitigation than you could shake a stick at. I tell you the truth, there is no way that my guild would have downed Sindragosa with a disconnected MT if I was anything other than a druid, putting my fuzzy butt on the line there. 22 stacks of Mystic Buffet, I held her, and was able to properly hand her off to the MT as soon as she reconnected. Had I been able to do it one second earlier, I would have been behind the ice block, been able to drop stacks, and return to the fight.

Now, not so much. Bears are fantastic in single-target fights, just as Warriors are. A Bear's Mangle is analogous to the Warrior's Shield Slam. Both hit like a truck and a half, and fancy mechanics affect it in some way, shape or form, like Shield Block boosting its damage, or Berserk letting us spam a cleaving Mangle for 15-20 seconds. We're great there. No problems with threat whatsoever. But the AoE threat game is dominated by the Death Knights and the Paladins. Now, obviously, I don't expect a tank to be absolutely phenomenal at everything. The last thing we need is Wrath 2.0 to roll back around again. But Bear tanking worries me somewhat, especially given how much of a hell it is to juggle Thrash uptime, three stacks of Lacerate, Demo Roar, Pulverize, watching your rage for Maul, and Berserk proccing mangles.

It's no secret that Bears take the most about of damage when tanking multiple mobs, compared to the other tanks. As far as survival is concerned, Warriors are seen gearing straight Block, to get themselves as close to a passive 30% physical damage reduction as possible. Death Knights, are stupidly hard to kill, what with that one DK Ragewyn soloing Marrowgar. And Paladins, well. You know what I say. Paladins are the cockroaches of Azeroth. Savage Defense sucks compared to Blood Shield + Death Strike. Savage Defense only stops one hit then disappears, regardless of whether it was 1 million damage, or 1 damage. Savage Defense sucks compared to Paladins and Warriors. Their mitigation mechanics are entirely passive, whereas Savage Defense requires continued, active damage output. And it only has one charge. We smack a mob, put up a shield, his buddy taps us for 1/5th of the shield's strength, pops it, and until we get to attack again, we're taking damage. I would like to see Savage Defense be turned into an absorption shield, a la Death Knights, where if the damage doesn't total up to the bubble, it doesn't pop.

I'm also concerned about some fairly large nerfs on the horizon:

• Skull Bash (Cat) / Skull Bash (Bear) now prevents spell from that school from being cast for 4 sec, down from 5 sec.
• Maul now scales from 24% of Attack Power, down from 30%.
• Lacerate now scales from 7.66% of Attack Power, down from 9.58%. Now makes enemies bleed for 35 + 2.56% of Attack Power, down from 35 + 3.2% of Attack Power.
• (Mangle) Mangle (Bear) now deals 235% normal damage plus 681, down from 300% plus 870.
• Pulverize now deals 80% weapon damage, down from 100%. Additional damage reduced by 20% as well, from 450 to 360.

Also, Berserk doesn't break Fears anymore, and shifting doesn't break roots. I confess to not having tanked as much as I would have liked. I resolved to not tank myself until I had learned every dungeon as a DPS. I still mess up here and there, but I am mostly able to keep the rising sense of dread in check.

Cat State of the Blog comes next.

-BTC

On the definition of insanity:

1.  [60] What Tomorrow Brings - 250 reputation
2.  [60R] Only One May Rise - 500 reputation
3.  [60G] The Path of the Righteous - 500 reputation
   •  [60G] The Hand of the Righteous - 500 reputation (repeatable)
4.  [60] Anachronos - 500 reputation (requires neutral with Brood of Nozdormu)
5.  [60] Long Forgotten Memories - 50 reputation
6.  [60] A Pawn on the Eternal Board - 100 reputation
7.  [60] The Charge of the Dragonflights - 10 reputation
8. Obtain the Shards:
   •  [Green Scepter Shard] fork
     1.  [60] Eranikus, Tyrant of the Dream - 25 reputation
     2.  [60] Tyrande and Remulos - 10 reputation
     3.  [60R] The Nightmare's Corruption - 250 reputation
     4.  [60R] The Nightmare Manifests - 500 reputation
     5.  [60] The Champion Returns - 250 reputation
   •  [Red Scepter Shard] fork
     1.  [60R] Nefarius's Corruption - 500 reputation
   •  [Blue Scepter Shard] fork
     1.  [60] Azuregos's Magical Ledger - 10 reputation
     2.  [60] Translating the Ledger
        •  [Narain's Scrying Goggles]
          1.  [60] Stewvul, Ex-B.F.F. - 10 reputation
          2.  [60R] Scrying Goggles? No Problem! - 10 reputation
        •  [500 Pound Chicken]
          1.  [60] Never Ask Me About My Business
          2.  [60R] The Isle of Dread! - 500 Gadgetzan reputation
          3.  [60] Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops - 500 Gadgetzan reputation
          4.  [60] Return to Narain - 500 reputation
        •  [Draconic For Dummies: Volume II]
          1.  [60] Draconic for Dummies - 10 reputation
             •  [60] Love Song for Narain - 10 reputation (optional, aids finishing Draconic for Dummies)
          2.  [60] rAnS0m - 10 reputation
          3.  [60G] Decoy! - 25 reputation
          4.  [60R] The Only Prescription - 150 reputation
     3.  Maws
        1.  [60] The Good News and The Bad News - 250 reputation
        2.  [60R] The Wrath of Neptulon - 500 reputation
9.  [60] The Might of Kalimdor - 500 reputation
10.  [60] Bang a Gong! - 500 reputation (only within the first 10 hours of opening the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj)
11.  [60] Treasure of the Timeless One - 500 reputation (after 10 hours)

Why yes, I very clearly AM insane, thank you. For the record, I only need to grab Fox and have her soak a mind control so we can burn Dr. Weevil down, and then farm some Elementium, (easy enough, I have an open raid ID set up for it) and that's it.

Elementium counter: 2/10.

(The above excerpted from Wowwiki.)

-BTC

On /khaaaaaaaaan:

Blizzard, you bastards, why did you have to change Nom Nom Nom to something else?!

-BTC

On deflation:

Like taking an icepick to an inflatable bounce house, seriously.

So, found this on WoW.com:

Jason asked:

So ... I'm concerned about the guild achievements, in particular the 50,000 quest achievement. I've heard that any quests done prior to Cataclysm don't count towards that total. If that's true, then my guildies and I who earned Loremaster are looking like we're screwed. Also, can someone explain what's meant by the top 20 players in a guild being the only ones who count towards guild achievements? Is that based on guild rank or total achievement points?

You might be misunderstanding what a guild achievement is. It isn't "if 20 people in your guild have Loremaster, your guild has the Loremaster achievement." While you might have an achievement for being in a group that kills Cho'gall, your guild has a separate achievement for killing Cho'gall in a raid where 20 or more people are from your guild.

The top 20 earners count toward guild advancement, not achievements. Your guild can gain levels by people PvPing, killing bosses, doing quests, etc., and only the top 20 earners for the week will contribute to end-of-week XP gain. You also get guild XP for getting guild achievements, and Blizzard says it grants a "big chunk" of XP, so it feels good to get them.

The quests you completed prior to Cataclysm's launch won't count toward your guild's total for the 50,000 quests achievement -- but that's so when the system becomes available, everyone will be on equal footing. Note how all of the achievements say "as a guild" in them, too.

Dude. Top 20? And 50,000 quests? We don't *have* 20 active people in our guild. And let me tell you, doing Loremaster was the Worst. Thing. Ever. I mean, yes, I wanted the title, so I cheerfully made like a Korean and ground my way through them all, but Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick with Mary and Judas, but I do NOT want to do anything remotely even LIKE Loremaster again. Never again!

-BTC

On disappointment?

You know, I don't often get excited about kill achievements. Especially when there's a pity buff ticking along in the background. Taking down The Lich King and, in effect "beating" WotLK was not very exciting for me, but everyone else in the guild seemed to have the jitters and immediately ran off to get celebratory alcohol. Me? Quite literally, I was more excited to finally make Anzu my bitch, or to get my Cenarion War Hippogryph than beating the Lich King, even if I *did* have to tank him after most everyone else was dead, so our DK and Mage could burn him for the last couple of percentage points. (Again! You may may remember my previous heroics in stepping in and tanking Sindragosa during a connection blip.)

Oh well.

Now, we move on to Ulduar, and knock out those hardmodes so we can get 310% speed mounts before the expansion hits, save everyone 5K gold. Again, not as excited for this, because you know that I am only ever going to use Swift Flight Form, anyways, although the extra speed boost will be nice. (Exceptions are given for when I feel like showing off with the Hippogryph. Did I mention how much of a druid-nerd I am?)

-BTC

On advertising

Hooray, I got linked by John Patricelli! You guys may have heard of him. He's kind of a big thing amongst Druid tanks. And we don't mind when he decides to go on a tirade, either. =3

It's been a while since I've posted, obviously. Between a two-week break in raiding because people were getting burnt out, and the subsequent release of Starcraft II, things have been very quiet on the home front. Pretty much the only thing that stands between us and our shiny Kingslayer titles is Harvest Soul. And then after that, we take a break from ICC, and go clear out our older raid achievements. Ulduar is first on the list, so we can get those shiny 310% speed mounts, and then who knows what we'll do from there. (Really, it's not like I ever use anything other than Swift Flight Form anyhow. The only mounts I ever have bound to my bars are SFF, my Mechano-hog, my Raven Lord (YES! I FINALLY GOT HIM AFTER A YEAR OF FARMING! (Woo! Parenthetical abuse!)) and my Cenarion Hippogryph. I just want the mount for the 310% speed.)

Still steadily whacking away at achievements, though. Since I finished Loremaster, AND beat Anzu into submission, I've been looking for some new, overarching project to complete. Insane in the Membrane is an option. Twenty-Five Tabards, en-route to 40 Exalted Reputations is on the list as well. These are also on top of the Venomhide Ravasaur I'm doing daily. Since I just got exalted with Scryers as well, I'm inclined to start farming the materials needed to switch over the Aldor and get Hero of Shattrath as well. One of the other  non-achievement things, that I mean to do as well is roll that second druid for Boomkin, but I've been inclined to hold off on that so I can try the new Mulgore and re-learn Cataclysm druid tanking from scratch. I've also been pondering letting out some slack on my altitis as well. There's an Arms/Prot warrior I've been meaning to make, as well, and a Frost DK that needs levelling from 70 to 80. I'm giving up on the priest as well. The cost-benefit for making a threadbot isn't worth it, seeing as Fox told me that the epic spellthreads are rep-earned, and therefore out of the reach of a level 65 profession-only alt. Oh right, and I need to make a rogue for that Insane in the Membrane too.

....yeah, I've got a lot on my plate. Any suggestions?

-BTC

On REAL ID's fallout, a post-mortem:

(...although really, calling it a "post-mortem" is like saying "Dracula is dead". He always comes back. =T)

All in all, though, I'm not happy with Blizzard. Or Activision. Or any one of a giant nebulous "them".

It's kind of hard for me to *not* hold everyone at Blizzard as accountable for this whole fiasco, partly because of the lack of information on what happened behind the scenes, and partly because all the CSRs, whether forum or phone-based, were all told to hold the company line.

I'm not happy with Blizzard anymore. I mentioned in a previous post that I regarded Blizzard as the gold standard for a video game developer. It's cliche, but the magic is gone. It's like a studio exec deciding to axe Firefly. It's like LeBron leaving Cleveland for Florida. It's like Garrosh being a dick and pissing off people in Cataclysm. It's any semblence of "cool" that Blizzard might have once had has now evaporated. Just look at my Achievement points over to the right. I have invested a great deal of time and money into WoW. I was ready to keep telling Blizzard, "take my money, please" all the way through Cataclysm, as long as they kept giving me a great game to play every time that I logged in.

I mean, quite literally, I was just about ready to give Blizzard my $55 dollars to transfer an old 80 from another server and faction change it. I had planned this out months ago, working up all the things I would need, by liquidating my now-abandoned guild's vault, and buying things in anticipation of reselling them Hordeside on Kirin Tor. Oh, and the things I bought. I picked up a Rowan's Rifle of Silver Bullets for 900 gold. I found an Eye of Shadow. I bought cheapish ICC BoEs. I bought every single ToC recipe, most of the Ulduar recipes, gobs of Alliance-only pets (most of which consisted of White Kittens), every single Alliance-only Cooking recipe, stacks and stacks of Hakkari Bijou, and Coins, Sunfury Signets to turn in for Scryer's rep, Dreadfang Venom Sacs to change to Aldor, and Marks of Kil'jaden and Sargeras to pump that up quickly. I bought out Books of Glyph Mastery, flasks, fish, gems, both cut and uncut, enchanting materials, and just before this whole thing blew up, I was starting to stockpile Primordial Saronites. Basically, if it could be sold for a profit Kirin Tor-H, I was buying it in spades. And now all I'm left with is wasted effort, and goods that now sit in my bank and bags, rapidly depreciating in value.

I don't want to reward Blizzard's stupidity on this issue. Again, there I go blaming the entire company again when it was probably just the work of a relatively small group of people.

But man, I want to have *someone* to blame, and cast out.

-BTC

On ....ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?!:

I think I'll let the headline do all the heavy lifting here:

 ESRB unintentionally exposes email addresses of people who filed complaints over Blizzard's Real ID system

ARE YOU GUYS FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

I mean, seriously, now. I'm just glad that I filed my complaint using an email from mailinator.com

-BTC