Sar's Yarn

Tinned beef, themes and promises…

...to try and start writing more here.

Yeah yeah, I know, I've said it a million times before, and likely a million times more, but I do want to keep the site active and updated as often as possible. That might mean shorter posts, but we'll try anyway and see how it pans out.

So a new theme, a bit simpler and less showy than the last one, although I still do like the Arras/Classical Gamer theme, so much so that I use it for the Thunder website.

As far as wow goes, we're currently still sitting at 10 out of 12 of the end bosses downed. Been stuck on Nefarian and Al'Akir for what seems like an eternity now, and with the T11 normal content nerfs the impending 4.2 patch is bringing, I would seriously like us to get it done before the nerfs hit, as they're substantial reductions in boss difficulty across the board. Most to the tune of -20%, in health, attack power, damage done, longer Feedback debuffs on Al'akir (meaning you don't have to stack the adds in P2, just kill them as they pop), less adds etc. As I said, substantial nerfs, and I thought we were at a stage now where we should be polishing off normal level content at the very least.

Yes, we're a casual guild, but that doesn't mean in attitude towards raids. I still expect raiders to do their utmost to do the job precisely and well. Hell if I can spend literally hours poring over my gear's stats, debating threat vs mitigation, gemming choices, rotation etc, why isn't everyone doing the same?

Either way, if we don't get them down before I go on holiday in 2 weeks it's likely we'll be looking at killing the nerfed versions. Which won't be satisfying to anywhere near the same degree otherwise.

4.2 of course brings Firelands with it, and the return of Ragnaros, the fire elemental Lord. Molten Core was merely a setback!

Oh, and I've also changed from a Blood Elf to a Tauren, hence tinned beef

4.2 will also bring some tankadin changes to one of our core damage reduction abilities, Holy Shield (What's that? Another wow patch and they're changing core Paladin abilities again? Well colour me shocked! /sarcasm) This time, instead of its current iteration where it becomes active if you use either Shield of the Righteous or Word of Glory (still an unfortunate acronym, WoG) and giving you a flat 10% increase in the amount of damage blocked upon a successful block, they're changing it to an activated ability that gives you a 20% increase in blocked damage, but stays up for 10 secs and has a 30 second cooldown.

Yay, another button to push in order to reduce damage. That's like what, 5 now?

• 3 min CD: Guardian of Ancient Kings: 50%
• 3 min CD: Ardent Defender: 20% plus 15% self heal on "near death"
• 3 min CD: Divine Guardian: 20% for everyone in the raid bar the paladin
• 1 min CD: Divine Protection: 20%
• ½ min CD: Holy Shield: 20%

We've rapidly gone from being the loltank, which was generally considered to be the easiest tank to play, to something with more buttons and activated abilities than the previously most complex tank class, the warrior.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have the tools to do our job, but with all the other incidental abilities we have that we need to use mid-fight (hands, seals, heals, taunts and hell, what about our attack rotation?), my UI is beginning to look like the fucking control console for the USS Enterprise. Some day soon I swear I'm gonna hit the wrong button and end up ramming through the nearest wall at light speed, leaving behind a rather large bloody Tauren sized smear and the faint smell of cooked beef.