We downed Void Reaver last night. It was pretty obvious it was going to happen, right from the start, although it took us three three tries. The first two times, we got him down to 60%, then 44%, and finally on the third try we took him down.
It was a welcome victory, but somehow not as exciting as the first time we killed Gruul (back before he was nerfed; I always have to add that). For one thing, Void Reaver has a reputation as an easy boss kill, so I think we all felt a little embarrassment that he gave us problems for awhile. The difference between victory and defeat really came down to having the mod Bigwigs installed. That mod made it so easy to know when an arcane orb was coming for us or the person standing next to us.
So, what dropped? The Pally/Shaman token dropped–times three!–plus the Cowl of the Grand Engineer. I rolled on the hood, but lost to our raid leader, another warlock. Hopefully there will be more opportunities for me to get either the cowl or the shoulder token. Since I already have the Mantle of the Elven Kings–equivalent to T5 mage shoulders–I’d most like to replace my Voidheart Crown especially. I need more base +hit.
Currently I am at 116 +hit, without my Scryers Bloodgem. I equip the Bloodgem in place of Timbal’s for boss fights, which brings my +hit up to about 150. Still I need more. I am capped for Affliction, but not for Shadow/Fire, and this is a source of embarrassment.
I’m going to be doing some Karathons over the next few weeks, so I am hoping for two pieces of gear that should put me close enough to the hit cap that with the Bloodgem, I’ll be capped on bosses. I want the wand that drops from Aran, and the cape that drops from Prince. Those two pieces alone should be enough.
The reason I raise the subject is that I got into a discussion with another warlock in the private guild warlock channel. It was one of those discussions that makes me feel like I’m a failure. Of course you cannot tell the tone of a person’s voice, or whether they are really being condescending, from typed text in a chat pane, but the gist of the conversation was “Well I’m hit capped for everything, so why aren’t you?”
I had to admit that I am not Exalted with the Sha’tar, so my head enchant is all wrong. Plus there are those two gaps in my gear–wand and cape.
Yes, it was frustrating at something like 148 +hit to see my Immolates being regularly resisted by VR. Yes I know every second lost recasting a spell that did not land is a second of DPS lost. Yes yes yes. I’m working on it, now get your damned epeen out of my face and go stroke it in private.
Truth is, I don’t know if I can get the Sha’tar Glyph of Power at this point, simply due to time constraints. At 1500 rep per Mechanar run, I’d have to run it about eight times to make it from Honored to Exalted. There might be other TK instances that yield better rep, but I’d still choose to run Mechanar because of the purple gem that drops on Heroic–it also gives +6 hit, and I could replace some Veiled Noble Topaz’s currently equipped.
Often I think WoW simply demands too much from players. Yes, I could stop raiding and PvP all day for purples, or I could just do dailies and level alts. There are a few people in my guild who do just that. That’s a difficult road for me to take, however. My internal drive is geared towards raiding, and that makes life difficult for me (and for my wife who has to put up with the hours spent with my face in a computer screen).
At other times, I think to myself “God, what were those designers thinking when they created this damned game?” I’ve never played a video game that required this kind of time commitment to achieve the highest level of goals in the game. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah, if I were single I’d never have contact with the outside world again. But there is something messed up with that.
I, for one, am glad that the trajectory of Blizzard’s development seems to be more and more aimed at the older, casual gamer. I love the idea of 25 man dungeons in WotLK also being offered in a 10 man flavor. I’d like to see more ideas like that, though. For example, this whole business of having to grind Heroic Mech for Sha’tar rep…that’s just wrong. The game shouldn’t work like that. Repetition is death to fun.
I don’t know how else Blizzard could work things so that the game is less of a slog, though. Personally, I love the idea of rep gained via turn-ins. I don’t grind for faction items. I buy ‘em up off the AH. That’s how I got to Revered with Scryers. Sha’tar rep should be similarly easy to acquire. Others may differ–there is something to be said about playing a game with the difficulty level turned up way high–but for older folks, with a job and a life, there are some elements of the game that need to be left on easy mode.
