Use Your Illusion

12 Months of blogging under my belt. My first post was exactly one year ago 23rd February 2012 and rather than the usual, "hello I am Dwarf Hunter and I have been playing World of Warcraft for x number of years", I went straight into a preamble about the night after a weekly reset.

What was more interesting was the second post which was a moan about Reputation Grinds especially the one that was required for shoulder enchants. Shoulder enchants might well be supplied by Scribes these days but the requirement for Reputation grinds is even worse now than it was then.

Right now World of Warcraft does not have the hold on me that it once did. I have not got the time to join the Guild on their twice weekly Raiding nights, due to my wife working late, and my children staying up later. There is also an issue with the game and the lack of support for Alts, which is really starting to test my patience in the game.

Today is not about my woes with the game, it is to do with this blog and the people that take the time to come and visit. I have made more of a splash than I ever expected and that is very much due to the early push by the Newbie Blogger Initiative.

I would like to thank everybody who got involved in the NBI project and the subsequent people who have visited and left comments. Special thanks go to the Grumpy Elf, the Godmother, Navimie, Tobold, and MMO Melting Pot, for their support and encouragement.

One of the most important parts of gaining readership numbers is through link love, and we are browsing through the daily WoW articles and have exhausted them all, but are still hungry for more, we will click on these links and have a peek. Sometimes we move right on, and other times we will devour all the posts they have ever written. I consider it an honour that people would even bother to link to my blog and for those people I am eternally grateful. Special mentions go to the Grumpy Elf who generates a lot of traffic and more recently I was bestowed a link from Blessing of Kings. Long time supporters include Healing Mains, Toys of Azeroth, The Poison Mushroom, Beyond Tannhauser Gate. Maybe they all just added me during the NBI and then forgot to remove my link, anyway big thanks.

One last thank you before I go, to all the people who have left comments over the year, it would be nice to have a few more, but I always appreciate it when people make the effort. Without feedback it is very difficult to improve.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all for another year.

Street Fighting Man

I have just finishing reading WoW Insider and was deeply touched by the response to the "Outcast Warrior". It sounds like something something from the annuls of the Grumpy Elf, and as much as he like to rail against the bad players in the game, he has been known to offer help and advice to those that will listen. Yesterday Grumpy said in Play It Forward -

"Are bad people just bad people or are they a product of their environment?"
In the case of the "Outcast Warrior" he seems to be very much a product of his environment, an older player, new to MMO's if not Gaming, having a hard time in Real Life and just wanting to escape into a virtual fantasy world. World of Warcraft is a harsh environment these days, and people are less inclined to help. If you are new to the game and wander into a City and ask for help in the Trade Chat, what you don't expect is the tirade of abuse, laughter and jokes at your expense. Most of us know better than that, and if we want to know something we ask in Guild Chat, or more commonly "Google It".

"Outcast Warrior" is obviously struggling and fast learning is not his forte, but I had to laugh when they mentioned the following - "DPS Warrior, ilvl 496, I'd like to go!", 496, I can only dream about that kind of gear, I have only just this week got my second character up to a point were I can do LFR.

I would guess judging from the story that the author was not the first person to try to help the "Outcast Warrior"and that his Guild had long since given up on him.

I appreciate that the "Outcast Warrior" is a polite and very humble man, who is very aware of his own lack of abilities and is also aware that he is being shunned by most the player community, but I am not sure I could have devoted so much time to trying to help him. I am not a callous and unfeeling individual and I nearly had a tear in my eye, when he writes his apology and asks for forgiveness and one more try.

People seem to believe that the atmosphere on the Korean Realms is less harsh and more forgiving than before this post went viral. I still don't see how we got to this position in the first place. I am less helpful in the game than I was years ago, but I am not rude to people unless they are rude to me. Manners cost nothing and the least you can do if you ask a question and get a sensible answer back is to thank people for their help.

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On another topic of the week I noticed that Blizzard have done a U-Turn on the Valor reset. Now there is no need to thank me, but I have been on a bit of roll recently. I know it was only a throw away comment but I did question the logic of the Valor Reset when Justice Points are less than useless. Other successes have been quality of life improvements to the Sunsong Ranch, and the Thank you that I issued for fixing Archaeology. I guess if you complain about enough aspects of the game you are going to get the occasional hit.

Now I just need for Blizzard to make it easier to Valor cap on multiple characters, make Reputation Account Wide and give me access to a decent weapon.

Thanks in advance
Bob

Heroes

Heroes by David Bowie, is for me the sound of the summer of 2012. It became the unofficial soundtrack to the London Olympics and the amazing achievement of the British Olympic team.

Today I was completely devoid of any inspiration until I read the Grumpy Elf - What If: There Was No Holy Trinity. I have no intention of rehashing the work of Grumpy, but it got me thinking that all these Raid fights rely entirely on the Bosses being absolutely stupid. I will give you a scenario and see if you can find the flaw.

You are an all powerful Evil Mage, and you are sat on your Throne when 10 or 25 people walk into your Throne Room, sit down eat, drink some potions, do rude gestures at you, and then rub up against you and fart loudly. They first count to 10 and if everybody is ready then a tin man with a shield and really noisy clanking Plate Mail armour is going to rush up to you, with his best mate, who might look a bit like a bear and start beating you to a pulp. At this point everybody joins in.

Anybody see a problem with this scenario? Next up, the worlds most powerful mage, wearing a silk dress and pointy hat is going to focus all his/her attention on the Plate Wearing idiot in front of you who is carrying a very large weapon and a Shield the size of a house. Somehow I don't think so.

If 25 people had stormed my house and killed and slaughtered all my henchmen, retainers and evil pets, I am absoultely sure I would know they were coming. Would I be interested in the Warriors, Death Knights, Paladins and Big Bottomed Druids (Bearform not Moonkin), no not at all, my first target would be healers at the back of the room. Always go for the weakest link or in this case the most powerful. No heals then the rest will fall like a deck of cards.

How about we have a fight were it is more important to defend the healers than maximise DPS. Throw the Holy Trinity out of the window and make Tanks useless for the fight. As long as we stick within the traditional roles, the fights are always going to be dances. Come together here, separate here, stand here now, move over there now, all switch to this add now, do not stand in the bad stuff, Heroism and burn.

Change the roles and make us think our way through a fight for a change. We are supposed to be Heroes but it takes 25 of us to kill one man/woman dressed in a kimono and a pointy hat. Go on make us heroes just for one day.

Pearl Necklace

I was a little reluctant to search Google Images for the above picture. In case you don't know Pearl Necklace has a slang meaning, which might not be readily accepted by a Proxy Firewall.

I have had a little downer on Darkmoon Faire and the Seasonal Events, but if there is gear to be had, I am going to be first in the queue to indulge myself. This week we have Love is in the Air, to correspond with Valentine's Day. The celebration in the Real World has always been very commercial and the buying of mass produced greetings cards seems a very false way of demonstrating your love.

In game we have a chance to win (very slim chance) a Love Rocket, a pink 2 seater flying mount, but right now everyone seems to be more interested in scrapping over one of five necklaces that drop from the Chemical Co encounter.

 

The 5 necklaces at iLevel 480 cover the usual bases of:

•  Strength (Melee DPS)
• Agility (Melee (Leather clad) and Ranged DPS (Hunters)
• Dodge (Tanks)
• Intellect (Caster DPS)
• Spirit (Healer)

Judging by the flurry of activity and the moans and groans from the people on their 10th run of the day to get a Necklace, there are a lot of people who have not managed to pickup better necklaces from the Reputation Grinds. Both the Klaxxi and the Golden Lotus have iLevel 489 versions. The Golden Lotus version is a reward for completing the quest The Final Power. This means that the people running the Chemical Co are

• Alts that have not completed the reputation grinds
• People who have had better things to spent their Valor points
• Main characters who have not completed the reputation grind
• People who are desperate for the Love Rocket

I am guessing that if you need a iLevel 480 Necklace on a main character at this stage in the expansion, then Blizzard have got this expansion very badly wrong. In my opinion I should have all my alts that have completed up to Exalted with the Golden Lotus, but as the Grumpy Elf has pointed out on numerous occasions that the Golden Lotus is the most detested of all Rep Grinds in that it takes forever and the rewards do not correspond with the effort.

iLevel 480 gear seems to be pitched firmly at starter set gear, and this is closer to were the Honor rewards should have been not 450 Blue gear.

I like healing this seasonal Boss(es) due to the obvious nature of people who are incapable of moving out of the bad stuff. Scenarios have taught me one thing at least, that your health is your own responsible. Do not expect somebody else to wipe your bottom for you. Healers are there to keep the Tank alive and deal with splash damage to the party not heal through lazy DPS thinking that moving is an optional requirement.

Why do Plate Wearers keep taking Agility items? did the game change and nobody told me?

Route 66

The story has been floating around for several days, and it is still only a twinkle in the developers eye, and for that reason I didn't take too much notice. Yesterday Grimmtooth spoke out about it and I don't think he is best pleased. The subject is the Blacksmithing Levelling Revamp current sat on the 5.2 PTR.

The plan is for budding Blacksmiths to be able to skillup on Ghost Iron, instead of farming or buying all the ore types on the path from 1-85 which I have just done on my Monk. The levelling Blacksmiths are one of the reasons for a fairly bouyant market in ores from copper up to saronite and it provided enough money all the way up to super duper Flight skill  at the princely sum of 5000G after already forking out for Cold Weather flying. Without that market in ores I would have struggled to make that kind of money, without a sugar daddy to bail me out.

The effect on the economy will to reduce the value of all other ores and push up the price of Ghost Iron Ore, and this will attract the attention of the botters and will bring them into Pandaria, and will make Ore more scarce for the average person.

My original stance when they introduced the express cooking skill, was why are they doing this? it is not hard to level cookery. The answers have emerged over time and one of them was a little bit of surprise.

1. Blizzard had a new toy in the shape of the Zen cooking experience. It was introduce for the Panda's as a bit of padding because of their love of eating and drinking. It was part of the all inclusiveness of not preventing people from taking part in new content.
2. The surprise aspect was the poor design from Cataclysm (big surprise). Cooking 450-525 was a disaster with no trainer bought recipes. All skillups were part of the Cooking daily and every 3 or 4 days you could purchase a new recipe. This is fine for an expansion that goes on for 2 years, but if you have a brand new Panda, then this is a considerable hurdle to get over.

My other argument at the time was why should cookery be treated better than other professions? This also proved to be unfounded because cookery is now express service from 1-525 and the slow boat to China from 525 - 600 with the huge investment in the Way of system.

My question is why does Blacksmithing need this assistance now? Is there a shortage of Blacksmiths at max level? and if there is, then maybe this is because the crafting professions have been shafted for so long and people are so fed up of making belt buckles as their only source of income.

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On the subject of Patch 5.2, there as been the announcement of the Valor/Conquest reset. On previous expansion this was no big deal because the Valor Tier gear would drop down to Justice Tier Gear, so there was no real change. This time the Valor points will become worthless Justice points and the previously available items for Valor will just cost less.

This requires action so as not waste precious Valor points. In my case my Hunter got the very sexy trinket from Operation: Shieldwall

This was a leap from an iLevel 427 Green item to this very nice upgrade (No stat inflation there then).

My only other character with any Valor to lose was my Shaman, who unfortunately has no reputation with any faction to allow him to purchase any Valor gear. The result is that I need to move quickly to acquire enough Valor points and accrue enough reputation with Operation: Shieldwall to purchase some iLevel 496 gear.

The only other factor is when the patch drops, and I am guessing that is towards the end of month.

Gold On The Ceiling

The Godmother thinks we should all be a bit more cheery in our outlook towards an 8 year old game, and The Grumpy Elf wrote some hilarious lines about improvement to the game and the issues of playing a MMO with other people. Every night I logon, I am getting more annoyed about the enormity of the task facing me, and where I want to be in the game. Contrary to popular belief I do want to work for my gear, but I don't want to be in a cutting edge Raiding Guild, and I would like to be more efficient and productive in my achievement of personal goals.

One of those goals is the attainment of better gear, but this currently conflicts with desire to level my Alts and my general lethargy towards Dailies. The Heroics have been very poor at providing any rewards, and when an item did appear for my Hunter, ie. an Agility Ring, it was needed and won by a Death Knight. I am not the only person having bad luck, in the last podcast of the Instance, Scott Johnson had run 12 Heroics without a single Hunter item dropping. If I didn't know better, I might suggest that the carrot to tempt us to do Heroics as already been eaten by the Virmen.

One of the gear slots I am really struggling with is Trinkets. I have a fully seasoned Scribe ready and willing to make Relics of Darkmoon, but there are a few obstacles in my way to achieve this. The first is the huge sums of money involved in purchasing this trinket, the second is the huge costs involved in purchasing the Inks for the random chance of the card you want, and thirdly the stupid amount of time required to crush 12 million herbs into inks. If there was ever a bigger time sink than Inscription I have yet to find it. Pressing my milling, macro key is not the problem, the worst part is waiting for the auto looter to collect the pigments before you can start the next crush. Even the ability to crush an entire stack in one press would result in a 75% time saving.

The reason we are stuck with this archaic method is to stop bots and gold farmers, and we can only have one action per key press. Thanks to Basil "Euripides" Berntsen we know the following information.

"The materials to make a card are 10 Starlight Ink and a Scroll of Wisdom, which takes three Ink of Dreams and is on a daily cooldown. If you want a nice round number that excludes leftover cards, making a deck takes about 64 stacks of Fool's Cap or 103 stacks of any other herb. The cards can often be found on the AH, sometimes for much less than the mats it takes to make one."

For the less wealthy amongst us we are stuck milling the cheaper herbs, 103x4 = 412 keypresses and a week for the scribe to convert the pigments to Inks. This cannot be done all the same time because our bags are not big enough, so you will have to shuffle things in and out of your bank. I cannot blame the crafters for getting as much money from the Auction House as possible, because this is the equivalent of doing a 12 hour shift down a mine. Is it any wonder that BoE items that randomly appear get thrown on the AH for half the price of these Trinkets. Speaking of BoE's since Blizzard cutoff the access to Tier gear through Tokens, there never seems to be any BoE Gear to buy any more and the 2 pieces of Crafting gear are permanently frozen in amber.

The main reason I have all the crafting professions covered is that I like to gather the mats and make items, but the rewards for doing so are few and far between. Each expansion seems to involve a few enchants, a handful of gems, some transmutation and belt buckles. Leatherworkers get a patch for your legs just like tailors and scribes now get shoulder enchants. Crafting is one aspect of the game which is not fun, not difficult and certainly not worth it.

Another aspect of the game that is worrying me, is Gold. There is plenty of it around, and my average amount is 150K Gold higher than it was Cataclysm, but I am still reluctant to spend it. I am waiting for an imaginary rainy day, and I don't know why. In game as in Real Life I am a miser, and will only spend when I consider something to be value for money. I could buy 11 trinkets tonight, but it takes me a long time to earn 220K Gold and I have enough other distractions without spending hours in the Auction House.

Change

At the moment there seems to be one Seasonal Event after another. I am curious how many people still take part in any aspect of thsee Events, unless there is loot or a mount as the carrot to keep us pressing the buttons. It is true they mark the changing of seasons, and there have been minor modifications over the years, but once we get the achievements we really don't care, especially when there is many other things to do.

This aspect of the game does not bother me if it is there or not, and I only bring up the issue because WoW Insider asked the Question, whether Blizzard should trash the Seasonal Events and start again. Even this was not enough to pique my interest until I witnessed the Darkmoon Faire this month.

The Darkmoon Faire, was a crappy event that moved around Azeroth and for a brief while it was busy because they had a vendor who sold ores, leathers, herbs and motes at very cheap prices. The other things of interest were Frogs and Darkmoon Trinkets.

It became such a ghost town that they decided to give it an entire Island and revamped the carnival with a series of very bugged achievements and stupid carnival dailies. They did however implement a very easy way to gain 5 profession skillup points, which I used for Archaeology and Fishing, and since the new expansion for all my crafting professions. Now that the expansion is firmly established, there is very little reason to visit each month. The mounts and pets are all accounted for due to the move to Bind on Account and even the Killer Rabbit is not the draw it once was.

I am assuming that the Darkmoon Faire is part of the CRZ, and if that is the case, I see very little future for the Faire in it's current guise. I ran the Darkmoon Faire on 11 characters on Sunday night and saw less than 10 other people in all that time. There was no fighting for Tonk parts, no waiting for Injured Carnies and nobody on the pier fishing. This town is going like Ghost Town.

The reason would appear to be obvious, the lack of any tangible rewards and the requirement to do Monthlies on top of a mound of Dailies does not fire the enthusiasm to trundle out to the Island.

The Drakmoon Faire is an ex Faire, it has ceased to be, and it is about time that Blizzard removed the nail and left this Parrot alone to push up the daisies.

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

Go on admit it, you were singing the song to yourself, and if not why not? we all need a bit of cheesy rock in our lives.

During my last post, Please Forgive Me, I was talking about the Hybrid Tax and how disadvantaged my Hunter and Mage are compared to Druids and Paladins. The idea struck me of why do we need 3 DPS specs, when 2 would still provide a class with enough flavour and Role Playability. Like a good baker I have an idea so as not to waste the spare pastry that Blizzard has worked so hard on. It might be a little hard to explain my crazy plan, so at this point I will resort to lists:

 

Existing Classes

Hunter - Beast Master and Marksman
Warrior - Protection and Arms
Monk - Brewmaster and Mistweaver
Paladin - Protection and Restoration
Priest - Holy and Shadow
Mage - Arcane and Frost
Warlock - Demonology and Affliction
Rogue - Combat and Subtlety
Druid - Feral and Guardian
Hippy -Restoration and Balance
Shaman - Restoration and Elemental
Death Knight - Blood and Frost

New Classes

Mercenary - Fury and Survival
Sorcerer - Fire and Destruction
Cleric - Retribution and Discipline
Barbarian - Berserker and Enhancement
Ninja - Assassination and Windwalker
Necromancer - Unholy and Undead

Hunter

This is a class all about hunting, Marksman like to hunt stealthily and kill with one well placed shot. Beast Masters have become attached to their pets. Survival was always the odd ball spec.

Warrior

Protection is the Meat Shield and Arms represents the skilled fighter. This is a trained soldier, with a full understanding of tactical engagement and fighting as a soldier in a pitched battle.

Monk

Skilled in the martial arts, the Monk is a class designed and trained to defend, but also skilled in alternative healing techniques.

Paladin

Holy warriors with noble intentions, always on the look out to save damsels in distress and fight Dragons. Uses his faith to heal those around him. Think Knights of the Round Table.

Priest

Dangerous scheming men of the cloth who use faith to achieve power and wealth. They are able to tap into the shadowy world to smite their foes and call on the gods to directly heal their allies. Think of Cardinal Wolsey meets the Spanish Inquisition.

Mage

Well versed in arcane knowledge and less obvious is their ability to tap into the water elements.

Warlock

Using the Dark Magics, the warlock favours creating Demons and inflicting long lasting curses

Rogue

Rough and ready, a Rogue will sell his Grandma if he can make on profit on her. Well versed in the dirty tricks department and will use any means available to gain the upper hand.

Feral Druid (new)

Able to change into animal shapes to aid their combat prowess. They are close up in your face fighters with the ability to take a fair amount of damage with their thick hides.

Hippy Druid (new)

Having spent so much time as botanists they are able to heal the world as Tree huggers. After ingesting a large quantity of illegal substances they are able to transform into over weight Owl People with a special gift for natures spells.

Shaman

Shaman like Hippy Druids share an affinity with nature, although they favour the Elements (Earth Wind and Fire) for their power.

Death Knight

Undead Knights forced into Zombie like service using the Dark arts which were used against them to resurrect their bodies. They favour Blood and Frost for their power, which originates in the Frozen ice lands of Northrend.

The New Classes

Mercenary

A battle hardened street fighter. A fighter with no allegiance except to the biggest purse. They have borrowed specs for both Warrior and Hunter, and have fury in their veins but an innate sense of survival. This would turn the old Survival Hunter back to being a Melee class. A mail wearing class.

Sorcerer

I envisage the Sorcerer to be slightly unhinged drawing on the Fel energies and using the specs from Mage (Fire) and Warlock (Destruction) to make this new caster class. A glass canon with huge burst potential, but weak and frail from years of manipulating the Fel energies to do their bidding. Cloth wearing class.

Clerics

This class sits in between that of Priest and Paladin. They are religious zealots, with fanatical intentions to convert the world to their religion. They are a mail wearing class made up of Paladin (Retribution) and Priest (Discipline). They would closely resemble the Knights Templar in outlook and would wear mail not Plate.

Barbarian

Leather and fur clad warriors who use brute strength as their main weapon. They would inherit Enhancement from the Shaman class and would need a new spec for a Berseker spec. Modelled on the Goths, Vandals and Vikings.

Ninja

Based on the Ninja and Shinobi from Feudal Japan. They are skilled in espionage, sabotage, infiltration and assassination. They would use be a hybrid of the Monk (Windwalker) and the Rogue (Assassination). Leather clad and seldom seen, they hide the shadowy world.

Necromancer

A cloth wearing alternative to the Warlock. Their forte is the dead and the undead, they are masters of the Underworld and would borrow Death Knight (Unholy) and would need a new spec (Undead). They love nothing more than spreading plagues and raising the dead for their own evil needs.

Summary

At present the pure DPS classes have no unique selling point, but what my proposal would do is even out the Hybrid classes, especially those like the Druid (4) and Paladin (3) different roles. The game comes with Dual Specialisation so why not only have 2 specs and have both available to you. It would require a change back to more Alt friendly environment, because the Healing and Tanking skills are spread over more classes.

Personally I would be really keen to play a Ninja, dressed in black, and carrying nunchucks, sai and throwing stars. I want to roll one now.

Please Forgive Me

I do apologise in advance, I am feeling a little narky today due to the fact that I nearly died on my commute into work today. My journey is 30 miles (48 Kilometres) and the trip is 90% motorway driving. My car is a small family car and I personally have a problem with big petrol guzzling 4x4 monster trucks when the people who drive them live in Cities and Towns and never need to go off-road or up steep inclines.

Today one such vehicle decided it could muscle me out of the way, and when he eventually passed I gave him a salute to inform him of my displeasure. In retaliation he nearly took the front wing off my car and after I used my horn he decided that a quick lesson in emergency braking was the order of the day. This manoeuvring all took place at 80 MPH and his monster truck was only a few feet in front of my car at the time. Thankfully I was alert to the situation but I could easily have been dining on Hospital for several weeks after this stunt.

This is my current state of mind. I often try to think of blog posts on the way to work and unfortunately I am out of ideas and besides my thoughts turned to just being glad I was alive. This morning at work I turned to the internet and wished the Godmother Happy Blogging Anniversary and then got angry again with Matthew Rossi and his WoW Insider post called A Game Frozen In Amber.

I have no particular axe to grind, I am a fan of both Blizzard and WoW Insider, and I have no particular expansion in mind when everything was perfect, but I do object to the argument that Blizzard always fixes it's mistakes.

World of Warcraft has evolved, changed and got better in many ways, but it is the design philosophy that is the problem, they listen to intensely to the noisy minority and jerk and veer off in different directions. The first example I can think of was when I was levelling a Retribution Paladin during the Burning Crusades era. Ret Pallies were considered by many to be an absolute joke, and I was struggling through the zones. Blizzard realised that there was a problem with mana, for a class that ultimately uses muscle to hit things over the head. The change they made was legendary, and turned Pallies into absolute gods, they couldn't burn through their mana and had a permanent Blue bar so they could use any spell they wanted without any recriminations. This was OP on an Epic scale and of course it didn't last long, before they were, "nerfed to the ground baby."

The Devs are very good at identifying problems, and terrible at implementing them. They swing from one viewpoint to another until they they hit a sweet spot, instead of trying to implement smaller incremental changes. Some design philosophies never even materialise, as a backlash against cutting edge Raiding teams stacking certain classes, Ghostcrawler coined the now famous, "Bring the Player not the Class." This would only ever work if the classes were more closely aligned, more so than even Frostheim would have us believe. In the past very few people would respec for alleged  performance gains, but the Raid Logs are freely available these days and the herd will gravitate to the best DPS spec. When Fire Mages were singing ass at the beginning of MoP, the percentage of raiding Fire Mages was about 90%. When Fire was nerfed and Arcane buffed the figures began to level out. Bring the Player needs equality and viability throughout an expansion. It is no wonder that Ghostcrawler quietly stop using this quote.

"The Hybrid Tax", was another of Ghostcrawler inventions, and I have already ranted way to many times about this concept for my own good. In the days before I discovered Restoration Shaman, I loved playing both my Hunter and my Mage. I was Beast Mastery and Frost for the record, and if any 2 classes have been treated more shabily for so long I am unaware of it (hold your tongue Ret Pallies). When the concept of the Hybrid Tax was first mooted, it made absolute sense to everyone except for Boomkins. The concept was a simple one, if 4 of the classes can only do one role in a raid (DPS) then they should at least be able to more damage than a Hybrid class. Never in a million years did this ever come to fruition. The result was that in terms of popularity Rogues and Warlocks have both had some very lean times.

The list goes on and on if you start adding in gating, reputation grinds, dailies, Heroic difficulties, tokens, PvP rewards and alts. Patch 5.2 will do very little to address some of the issues facing Gearing and alts. The recent Blue Post from Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas, had me screaming from my padded cell, they now think they have got Stat inflation under control. If this is the case why does the average new level 90 do about 20K DPS whilst a raider will easily pump out 100K, if that is under control, then I wonder what out of control looks like.

I could go on and on all day, but I think it is probably better if I turn off the light and put the pillow over my head.

***Edit***

I forgot to say I read this at WoW Insider and it is an interview with a WoW Insider groupie called Revynn. The following sums up exactly how I feel at the moment:

"What do you find most captivating about Mists? What keeps you playing?Concerning Mists itself, it's hard to say. I've largely enjoyed the expansion so far and I feel like this is one of Blizzard's best raiding tiers, but the early grind to get to 90 and geared followed by a gated rep system that felt more like a job than a game has me a bit burned out at the moment. I still love the game and I don't plan to leave it any time soon, but the idea of going into LFR, grinding heroics or questing through Jade Forest again makes me a bit nauseous."