What would you be doing instead?

Over at paladinsucks.com, Mastgrr posted "I could play this game forever. I really could. But, I'm 21 years old. I've spent the last 2-3 years of my life playing this game. I really don't see how I can go on forever." and stuff along the lines that it's a timesink, and there are other things he could be doing. I've seen this in a few other places as well.

Now, I'm not saying people are wrong, but the common idea of "there are better uses of my time" may just be someone being contemplative of everything in their life, not just the MMO they are playing.

This will vary from person to person, but as the title asks: What would you be doing instead?

Serious question here folks. Before you started playing WoW or MMOs in general, what did you do during your free time? If you spent it hanging out, being a social butterfly, and generally being very outgoing until an MMO grabbed you, then yes, it probably is a better use of your time to do something else.

But for many MMO players, if every MMO company went bottom up all at the same time, and that event scared off every other company from filling the void, would our social life change much? Probably not. We're introverts. We don't go out much, maybe a night or two a week to go drinking or gaming with a bunch of friends, but most of our free hours are spent doing singular activities (despite the multiplayer nature, MMOs are still things you mostly do on your own, IRL).

Yes, you could make better better use of your time than MMOs, but would you? That's something that each person needs to ask themselves and figure out.

For me, the answer is no, I wouldn't. Without WoW, FFXI or whatever MMO, I would be watching TV, or playing video games or reading books. I wouldn't be out making many friends, or making the world better for all of mankind. That's really no different than how my life is now.

WoW Journal 2007-05-30

Last night was pretty good. Did a few group quests with a PuG, and a guildie. That gets me down to 2 or 3 group quests to complete in Netherstorm. After that got into a Arcatraz PuG run around 11. Since it was the first run for three of us, it took a little longer. Having never completed the whole thing on any of my characters (the farthest I got was the final room) it was a pleasant change to actually complete it all. Nothing dropped for me but I was able to complete three more quests, including getting the third and final Karazhan Key shard. All that's left now is doing a Black Morass run. Also, turning in the "Kill Harbinger Skyriss" quest pushed me over into revered with Sha'tar. Woot! That's two heroic keys. Time to go update my list. :D

WoW Journal 2007-05-29

First long weekend in a while. Vegged for a lot and played a good amount of WoW.

On friday (I think it was Friday... maybe Saturday) got into a Shadow Labs run and managed to get my first Karazhan key shard, along with a Greatsword of Horrid Dreams. Also tanked Murmur... hate Sonic Boom. :( Still need to do more runs of Shadow Labs for the trinket and the healing chestpiece (and Lower City rep of course...).

Learned an awesome method for fighting Grandmaster Vorpil. Basically you pull him and run south, past where any of the NPCs spawn, down to near the entrance of the room. I would advise walking backwards to keep your weapon and shield aimed at him. Then he'll teleport everyone and you run north to near the corner of the hallway leading to Murmur's room. If he's still alive when he teleports again, you run south. If he survives one more teleport, you probably don't have enough DPS, and there's too many VWs at this point. Note: Learned that technique on an earlier run through with a different group... said group did not have enough DPS, and we wiped 4+ times on Vorpil before someone "had to go". Might have been me. Wasn't a huge loss, let me put it that way.

The next day I went for a Steam Vault run to get my second key shard. Party composition was paladin(me), mage, (Dwarf) priest, feral druid, and a shaman. 8 or 9 pulls in the mage goes AFK for the second time. Not a good sign, so we replace him with Omi one of my good friends from my guild, who's also a warlock. So we proceed to burn our way through it, getting the DPS caster ring from Hydromancer Thespia for Omi and the Gauntlets of the Bold from Kalithresh (not amazing but good until I can get my Felsteel Gloves made). Was pretty clean, but since some people were new it took a bit more time to explain the boss fights.

When we finished, we decide to do another run since we got through it pretty well. This run I totally cleaned up! Got the purple judgement helm from Mekgineer Steamrigger, then busted out with mega loot from Warlord Kalithresh when he dropped both the Breastplate of the Righteous and the Devilshark Cape. I asked if it was okay if I got both, b/c I didn't want to be greedy, and they said it'd be okay, as long as we did another run. I was down for that, so we did a fast burn through. This time, Omi's the one who scored big time... She got the recipe for the Battlecast Hood and the hard-to-get Primal Nether to make it with (and remember this was normal mode so that makes it super rare). Woo!

After that didn't do much else. Just worked on finishing up quests in BEM, Netherstorm and SMV. Did a Mana-Tombs run for Meloni on Monday. Somehow I kept putting GBoS on myself (I suspect I was accidentally put it on the other paladin. That made tanking a little harder. >.>

I speak Kazielese?

Or something, because I swear I'm speaking a different language than everyone else over at the MainTankadin Forums.

Okay, my point: Getting the right mix (whatever that is for whatever point you're at) of stats, while remaining uncrushable is our goal. Once we reach uncrushable, it's fairly easy to stay there. But it represents such a large base number of our iLVL points it puts us at a disadvantage compared to warriors.

What people hear: "Becoming uncrushable is hard and sucks! Not fair!" or something equally not what I'm saying.

*bangs his head against the desk*

In our cocoon...

Let's imagine for a moment, all classes are various forms of the Lepidoptera order. Endgame (whether it's PvP, 5-man or Raid) viability represents the adult phase, while being unviable in that aspect represents the larva phase. Just because they are the most commonly recognized of the Lepidoptera order, we'll refer to them as butterflies. Warriors and feral druids are already there. They are flying around in the sunlight that is tanking being all pretty and stuff. Then there are paladins. We are not yet butterflies. Instead there is a middle phase where the caterpillar is transforming from it's previous form to a beautiful butterfly. We are actually being considered which is far more than pre-expansion, but we are not there yet. Paladins are currently going through the metamorphosis into viable raid tanks, but growth is still to come.

My point in this is for someone who finds he likes tanking, not just paladin tanking, but tanking in general, it sucks. That's me... I tank in FFXI, I tank in WoW, I tank in CoH, and I'll probably tank in WAR. I like tanking. But playing a tanking class that isn't working the way it should makes it less fun. On the one hand, I know (not think, but know) eventually paladins will be able to stand next to warriors and druids as equals, but not yet and it sucks.

Two side notes:
First, here's a thought, make the coefficient for Spiritual Attuenment 15-20%. That should help, right?

Second, a quote from myself on crushing blows, and the referred change to it from the Stratics WoW Dev Chat:

The problem I'm referring to isn't getting enough of stat A, or getting enough of stat B. I can get anything up to where it needs to be. The problem comes with the amount of fine tuning I need to do to reach uncrushable, 10,000+ health, and a decent amount of spell damage (which for me is 250). A warrior needs to make sure he has 490 defense, and a shield. After that, they can get anything they want. Need more health, get some STA. Need some more damage, get some STR, AP or +hit. And any dodge or parry they get? That's just icing on the cake.

IMO, the reason we have defense and crushing blows and all that jazz is it's a giant gear check, and also a way of ensuring that classes who were never intended to tank (Rogues or Shamans for example) aren't trying to tank raids. If they introduced alternate methods that allowed paladins, who are meant to tank to not be so penalized because they don't have Shield Block, thus allowing us to direct more of our gear towards important stats like health or spell damage, I would be 100% behind it.

The new Spiritual Attunement and Mana/5

So 2.1 is here, and there are various mixed cries of Doom, Gloom, and Indifference. The one thing everyone can agree on: We're not getting as much mana. This was a foregone statement, with the change to Spiritual Attunement, but the question is how bad has it hurt us. I've seen mixed reports, some saying that they are having issues even up in Karazhan, and others saying that while it's not good, it's not that bad either... I still have to check out an instance myself, but I am firmly of the belief that the answer is more Mana/5. The best option, IMO is to get some Mana/5 gems. Downside is that Mana/5 falls under the category of a "blue" gem type, which means it's either Mana/5 or STA. Not a choice I really want to make *grumbles* It's not really an option with pre-KZ gear, but I figure it's doable once you start getting into Karazhan and get some of the socketed tanking gear. Still really don't like going under 200 spell damage...

Redoing uncrushable gear goal list.

So I found a nifty little tabulator... thing. An excel spreadsheet with formulas for tanking. ^^b Anyway, I went through it and changed out some of my gear from my list below. Specifically with patch 2.1 coming out today, I can finally respec to my final spec, along with getting some of the new gear. :D Anyway, check out my new gear list, if you care.

FFXI night.

Last night was my normal set party night. We met up a little late (9:30 instead of 9PM), and went out to a new spot. Good news was the mobs we fought, fishes, were much nicer than the crawlers which had been our staple before. Mobs that could do 800 damage fire breaths are not cool at all (note for non-FFXI players: I only have around 1250 HP). Bad news was the first place we went had a ghost spawn right on top of the camp after about an hour of us being there. Boo. :( Anyway, after teleporting away to safety, we went back and found a good spot where we can get fish during the night when the crawlers are asleep, and mix up crawlers and fish during the day. Yay!

After we finished up around midnight I logged onto WoW to see Hallikar online. Hallikar is the only Blacksmith I know of on my server who can make Bracers of the Green Fortress. Total price ended up being around 600g including paying for the Primal Nether he had, but for the best pair of bracers pre-Karazhan it was worth it. Helped friends out on a quest, and did a little bit of questing myself, but nothing big. Was already tired when I finished up with FFXI, so I called it shortly after getting my bracers.

One thing I like about Pally tanking

While there are many things I like about it, I think I like the absoluteness of the gear. I need to get the stuff I need to get and there is no room for the mentality of "well I don't need to get everything." I have to keep striving to get what I need. And that's what it is, need not want. On my mage I wanted better gear, but I knew I could make due with what I had and get upgrades later. On Alix I know in order to tank I need to get every last piece, and squeeze every last drop out of every available resource I can. There is no middle ground. There is no half-assing it. Once we start raiding I either make the cut or I get to heal for a week or so. That need drives me to improve my character. I enjoy that.

List of goals

Figured I should put together a more complete list of goals:

Faction:
Revered with Honor Hold. Complete!
Exalted with Cenarion Expedition. Complete!
Exalted with the Scryers. Complete!
Revered with Lower City. Complete!
Exalted with the Sha'tar. Complete!
Exalted with the Consortium. Complete!
Revered with Keepers of Time. Complete!
Exalted with the Violet Eye. Complete!

Normal Keys:
Shadow Labyrinth Key. Complete!
Shattered Halls Key. Complete!
The Arcatraz Key. Complete!

Heroic Keys:
Keyed for Hellfire Citadel. Complete!
Keyed for Coilfang Reservoir. Complete!
Keyed for Auchindoun. Complete!
Keyed for Temepst Keep. Complete!
Keyed for Caverns of Time. Complete!

Raid Keys:
Karazhan key shards: 3/3 Complete!
Completed Black Morass for Karazhan Key. Complete!

Equipment:
Complete my Deck of Furies: 8/8 Complete!
Complete the Purple Judgment non-set: 1/8

Misc:
Get 300 Riding Skill. Complete!
Get Netherdrake Mount.

I will continue to update this as I go along. Looking back on this post will keep you up to date. I will also occasionally post links back to this when I make a big addition to it or complete something big (ala Karazhan Key).