Over two god damn hours in a heroic and god knows how much in repairs

| Monday, January 3, 2011
I think I might actually like the new heroics.

Well, I can't say much for the instances themselves. BRC went downhill after the second boss, and not just literally. I suppose I like the lost city. But I can't say I much enjoy the place with all the air elementals and that goddamn windy tornado boss. Perhaps the halls of origination are good. But do not expect me to be eager to run Vash'jir place and the Stonecore can go fuck itself.

I'm trying to say that the new instances just aren't catching my fancy.

Oh but at least they're not short. Not short? Don't we usually want to be done with these awful places quickly? Oh, we must still remember rushing to get the hell out of those bloody awful Lich King instances, which for the most part were alright the first time around, but nothing is so much fun the fifth time in a day. On the other hand, how much of the awfulness of them was not the content itself, but the experience?

It's hard to enjoy a place that you're out of in 15 minutes. It's hard to enjoy a place where you never ever communicate, not even for business. Silent haste is no state for humanity, not even in a virtual world, and least of all in a social game.

The new instances might not be the most fun ever, but at least they're not silent rushes of hastened misery, palatable only for their speed, but done too many times only because of their speed.

Some stupid people thought that Cataclysm would somehow bring back Vanilla. They thought that remaking Azeroth might bring back that spark. I was wrong. I can't say I enjoy Azeroth all that much. Somehow I lost the ability to read quests. I simply did not care enough to bother. This has caused be more than a bit of trouble since quests sometimes contain details like "use this so you don't die" or "don't come back to the quest giver, but go over there instead". I don't much like questing anymore. Except for the Wildhammer dailies, mostly because they give me a good chance to kill Horde. I can't imagine it's quite as much fun for them, first of all because they have to deal with me: even if you do kill me, I am an obnoxious pain in the ass, but be thankful I don't yet have a new rogue! But second, because they don't get to fight alongside the Wildhammer. They're distilled awesome, and not only because they are what they drink.

The instances though, they have something that was lost. They feel more like adventures. I get to stop and look at a pack of enemies and truly think about the best process of killing them. That's something which I enjoy greatly. Of course there is a time for rushing in and grabbing everything, which happens to be my preferred method when doing dailies or clearing miners out of the way while I'm trying to mine in the mine in Twilight Highlands. Speaking of me being a pain in the ass, tanks seem a tiny little bit too powerful, what with their utter refusal to do basic PvP things like "take damage", "die", and "stop hitting your face in for even two seconds". Or that might be the opinion of the shadow priest, ret paladin, and half-dozen poor slave miners. In contrast, as ret I nearly cry at the sight of bears and anyone with a shield.

I didn't make any friends during my random heroics. Not a single one. But I did for a moment think that perhaps if we had not be unceremoniously dumped into a cross-server group, perhaps I might have friended someone or two. Not since BC have I given much thought to who or what was in my group.

It's funny, I don't laugh at the sight of hunters anymore. In fact, I rather appreciate having them around. Their freezing traps are quite handy. Strangely, surprisingly, I find myself not minding much at all that they tend to pull. I let them pull. Makes the trapping much easier, so the healer's job is easier, and I'm willing to put up with a hunter if it will help a healer.

On the subject of healers, do they use mana? I can only conclude the healers do not actually use mana. I base this on repeated observation, that being that healers seem to either have no mana or all mana, and whether I live or die seems unrelated to this. Maybe healing still needs work. No, make that definitely.

I must admit that I have at times not run a heroic because I thought I wouldn't have enough time. Again, that's something I've not really considered in a long time. They were always so short. Is this good or bad? Well if for some reason you never have any significant blocks of time, it is bad. But if you want substantial content, it's good. For Christmas I received the extended edition Lord of the Rings set. It takes what were already long movies and made them so long that they cannot even fit on one DVD, not even counting two more for bonus content, whatever that is. It was a lot of fun to watch. I don't know if I'd have enjoyed it much as a 30 second commercial.


Shintar said...

The Horde gets to work with the Dragonmaw, who enslave, eat and breathe dragons. I think that beats silly dwarves any time!

I've become quite bad at reading quests as well, I think because they've implemented so many tools to help you avoid it. There's that mark on the map, the quest tracker on the side, mob tooltips telling you if you need them for a quest and everything on the ground being sparkly. Really, why should you still read all the text?

I'm not sure how I feel about the new instances in general. I remember AN in WOTLK at least left me awestruck the first time I jumped down that hole. In Cata I had nothing like that so far. Even Vortex Pinnacle is just lots of white walls and floors to me.

I do agree on the new heroics and that it's nice to have to pay a little bit of attention to everything, mobs as well as other players.

And healers definitely do use mana... the heals that come out just aren't very impressive.

Tam said...

I usually find the tank has health or the tank doesn't have health and whether he or she has either seems to be unrelated as to whether I have mana ;)

Klepsacovic said...

@Shintar: So you get to work with a bunch of jerks. Woopie. Why not just go raiding? :P

@Tam: In the future I shall attempt to ensure that my health is more closely correlated with your mana. Would you prefer a positive or negative correlation?

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