Smores over Felfire

Mad Raven Games presents… real gamers of “genius”

(It’s edgy because of the quote maaaaarks)

Today we salute you, Mr. Trade Channel Chatterbox

(Mr. Traaade Channel Chatterbox!)

With /2 no longer bound to a single city, you preach your message of Anal [Rend] and Chuck Norris to 10 cities at once.

(Horde cities are included!)

Other trade-chatters want to sell Moonshroud at 150g? You have one for 149g, or so you claim.

(Noob doesn’t know he’s being trooolled!)

When someone else makes a great “murloc” joke, everyone in Dalaran knows you lol’d… over 47 times.

(I rolfcoptered my ass ooooooff!)

Guild recruitment macros are your area of expertise, so when there’s a typo or grammatical mistake, you make sure the recruiter knows of every single injustice they spammed.

(I’d neeeever misspell “Hypothalamus!” )

So have a stack of Halaani Whiskey on us Mr. Trade Channel Chatterbox. Because without you, /2 would be nothing but  WTB and WTS blurbs.

(Mr. Traaade Channel Chatterbox!)

I like to think of myself as a fairly logical individual. If someone is pissed at how I run things, I do my best to fix it. If we’re wiping on a boss encounter, I change the plan. But when Blizzard released the piece of music entitled “Invincible” I found myself doing something entirely illogical: getting choked up.

No matter how invested you are in a character, a guild, or an arena team, WoW  is a game. Nothing within the bounds of the game will ever happen in this life we call “time we spend AFK.” You will never throw a fireball at a zombie, orc, or night elf. You will never conjure chains of ice around a fleeing goblin. You will never trap, tame, and feed a T-Rex. This is a video game based on a world that simply does not exist. With all that said, I still got a bit emotional while listening to “Invincible.”

You can put a demerit on my man-card later, walk with me for a moment.

The story of Arthas is one of loss.  No matter how much you hate/love the character of the Lich King, keep in mind that the guy we’re going to be killing in a month or so is NOT, in fact, Arthas (as Uther informs the Jaina in Halls of Reflection). Arthas was a headstrong, and occasionally ruthless, Paladin who simply wanted peace for his homeland. In Warcraft 3, I honestly don’t think he did anything that would classify him as a “villain” until he is twisted by the Lich King and kills his father. Prior to the Culling of Strathome in Warcraft 3, he kills demon-worshiping orcs, bandits, and the occasional worshiper of some tiny little undeath cult (Cult of the… unhappy?). His methods are a bit more straightforward than Uther would like (ie: stab the problem until it goes away), but in the end the threat has passed and his people are safe and/or happy.

That is, until he discovers what’s happened in Andorhal.

In Strathome, every man, woman, and child is infected with the plague due to the tainted grain. As we, the players, were able to experience in the Zombie event in late 2008, the plague was fast-spreading, deadly, and near-impossible to cleanse (especially when the incubation period dropped to, say, 15 seconds). Arthas knew that once you were infected, you were as good as gone. He wanted to save Strathome, but the only way he could help the infected was to kill them before they were twisted into mindless zombies. Uther, for as much as he is venerated by NPCs in WoW, would rather have waited for every villager to be twisted into an undead monstrosity. Furthermore, in waiting for the villagers to die/come back he was putting his own men at risk (as soldiers can be killed by zombies when there’s a horde of them). Arthas was being as humane as possible in a horrifically dire situation, and he’s vilified for it.

Moving beyond Strathome, his actions are a bit more… well… “evil-ish” in Northrend, though still in line with what he is at his core (the headstrong and slightly ruthless Paladin). While Arthas is out scouting, a messenger comes and tells Arthas’s captian that King Terenas, on Uther’s urging, has recalled Arthas’s soldiers and, as a result, would put a stop to Arthas’s hunt for Mal’ganis.

Let’s dwell on that for a moment: Uther (the guy who didn’t have the balls to limit the amount of suffering those in Strathome would go through) convinced Terenas (who is completely clueless as to how to deal with the undead) to recall Arthas (Who’s the only person doing a damned thing) from Northrend (which is where the Lich King is pulling together an undead army to slaughter the living). Intel dropped the ball there… big time.

Let’s move back to Arthas. His captain informs him of Terenas’s command and, predictably, Arthas is a bit on the pissed side. He hires a bunch of mercenaries to help him burn the Alliance ships to the ground, turns on them, and lies to his men to keep them on track. Most view this as a big, red, flashing “HE R EBIL NOW!” moment in Warcraft history, though I would beg to differ.

Arthas found mercenaries (sidenote: who’s bright idea was it for the mercenary camp to be in the frozen north anyway?) who, given a different financial backer, would stab Arthas to death in half a second. Furthermore, they were ogres and trolls who, but a few short years ago, were part of the Orcish Horde which slaughtered thousands of humans. If it weren’t for the “you have to be dead” pre-requisite to joining the Scourge, it’s not much of a leap to assume these mercs would join up with the Lich King for their own gain. None of Arthas’s men are killed in the “betrayal” of the mercs, he gives his men a clear goal to their return home… and he’s condemned for it? If he returned home, all the lives he had to end in Strathome would have gone unpunished (as he would likely be imprisoned and/or restrained). Yes, lying to his men was regrettable, but saying “Oh yeah, you know who the guy who burned down our ships was? That was totally me!” would have ended with him dead, his men dead, and Mal’ganis grinning. He did exactly what a leader should do: motivate his soldiers, give them a clear goal to fight for, and minimize his losses (which he did by outsourcing the “killed in furious anger” department to some ogres and trolls).

Then comes Frostmourne.

Those of you who are waiting for me to point to the runeblade and say “this is when he falls” will be greatly disappointed.

What does he say when he picks up the blade? “I will give anything or pay any price, if only you will let me save my people.” Meaning he, in typical Paladin fashion, was perfectly willing to sacrifice himself to save the kingdom that was actively trying to destroy itself by calling Arthas home before he could get the job done.

The anti-Arthas folks will likely take issue with this due to one line he says. Namely: “Damn the men! Nothing shall prevent me from having my revenge, old friend. Not even you” (“Old friend” being Muradin). This line of dialogue, some would say, show that he’s clearly gone insane as he’s obsessed with killing Mal’ganis.

When you’re in war, it’s understood there will be casualties. Every man and woman with Arthas knew there was a very real chance that they would die up here, but they accepted it because they were protecting their families. “Damn the men” isn’t a sign of insanity, but a sign of focus. Muradin was trying to play on Arthas’s uncertainty (what uncertainty?) and guilt him into returning home. Muradin was so scared of the blade (rightfully so, by the way) that he was willing to give up the one opportunity they had to killing Mal’ganis (and theoretically ending the threat of the plague).

So when was Arthas’s “fall?”

I’d have to say it was somewhere after him saying “It is finished” when he stabs Mal’ganis and his return to Lorderon to stab his daddy. Y’know… the time he spend running around Northrend with the Lich King and the recriminations of all those he loved as company.

From Arthas’s perspective, he has been the perfect Paladin. He mercifully euthanized the inhabitants of Strathome, all of which were going to spend eternity trapped in rotting corpses. He risked his own life finding, hiring, and leading a band of ogres and trolls (who likely have relatives that stabbed at the ancestors of Arthas’s men) through Scourge-infested wastelands. He sacrificed his own soul to “end” the plague after he killed Mal’ganis. What did he get in return: Blame from a weak-willed Uther, disgust from his love-interest Jaina, and disappointment/shame from Muradin, King Terenas, and his own captain.

This would be a great story of true self sacrifice which the people of Lorderon would look back on honorably if it weren’t for one, small, tiny, problem. Y’know how Arthas said to “the spirits” who were ostensibly around Frostmourne that he’d pay any price to save his people? You know who was paying attention to Frostmourne?

The Lich King.

Do you think he was interested in taking Arthas’s bargain when another legitimate option was taking Arthas’s soul, killing one of his jailers (Mal’ganis), and using the prince in a flawless coup on Lorderon?

The new piece of music (I’d get back to the original topic eventually) perfectly expresses that loss Arthas embodies. The child’s singing, which was very similar to the child singing in the cinematic intro, mirrors the pain Arthas must have felt while he was still alive wandering Northrend (and slowly going insane). The choral singing, voices of grown men and women, represent those who died in Arthas’s service and those who were killed by Death Knight Arthas. Where the child gives a mournful feel to the music, the men and women give something different: loss and resolve. And it’s that subtle difference that makes the piece so much more than just a “it’s sad” song. That’s what makes “Invincible” a beautiful arrangement that brings warcraft 3, it’s expansion, and WoW together in one richly-woven choral masterpiece.

The amount of nerd rage over the price of the T10 badge gear is… well… impressive. With daily dedication (and running the weekly raid quest twice), you average at about 24 badges a week. This doesn’t include badges you pick up in ICC itself, but at a minimum that gives a player enough badges for 1 piece of gear after 3 weeks (at least for the first 6 weeks). So, at this point in time, if you have two pieces of T10, that’s actually an impressive accomplishment. But, naturally, there are a number of casuals who are freaking out because they will, in all likelihood, only pick up 2 pieces of t10 before Cataclysm comes out because they don’t want to farm their 24 badges a week.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I’m not a huge fan of badge gear. I realize that it’s a necessary evil (especially for us 10-man raiders because the gear jump from 25 ToC to 10 ICC is only a skip while 10 ToC to 10 ICC is a leap) to bridge the gear gap. When it comes to gearing up a new raider, it is infinitely better to run them through 3 heroics instead of a wing in Naxx (as heroics give better gear and quicker badges). And the old days of “hey, we have a new tank we need to gear… let’s start at Kara and work up through BT for him/her” are functionally extinct with badge gear. I appreciate the ability to kit out a new progression raider with heroics (as we had to gear a priest recently), but I have to say that seeing casuals in t10… this makes me mildly irate. Am I being an elitist prick? Probably, but what does Mr. “I only run heroics, but I’m in t9 gear” going to do with all his late-ToC-early-ICC level stuff? Run CoS a little faster and with less heals?

Perhaps WoW wants to keep ICC tier gear “rare-ish,” so the prices are extravagantly high, but this is a temporary solution at best. With 24 badges a week, that’s roughly 100 badges a month (assuming 2 or 3 ICC boss kills that month) and, as Cataclysm will likely not come out until summer (I’m thinking June meself), that’s 4 or 5 months of badges, clocking in at roughly 500 badges, more than enough to pick up every single piece of T10 after farming Marrowgar and Marrowgar alone.

Basically what I’m saying is making T10 gear badge-buyable is fine… but inflating the number of badges simply to limit the casuals seems shortsighted. Why not drop the price of the gear and make the badges farmable from ICC alone? I’d happily save up 30 badges that only ICC bosses drop for a piece of Tier gear. Does this make t10 gear less likely to get in the hands of casuals? Yes, but I fail to see why it’s a problem that only RAIDERS get RAID gear.

You don’t see me crying that my Bejeweled score isn’t as high as my casual colleagues…

This has been done several times over the past few days, but I feel the need to throw my lyrical hat in the ring.

Mad Raven Games presents… real gamers of “genius”

(It’s edgy because of the quote maaaaarks)

Today we recognize you, Mr Melee dps Omen winner…

(Mr Melee dps Omen winner!)

Raid marks, raid chat, even verbal commands do nothing to deter you from your target.

(Noobs should have hit my tarrrrget!)

You know threat is an illusion made up by tanks… and Omen really measures how awesome you are.

(400k awesome-sauce!)

Tanks fear of you because their puny minds can’t comprehend your sophisticated process of choosing a target… that they have to tank.

(Oh god he’s baaaaaaaack!)

The mind-blowing 10k DPS you had for those 5 seconds will live on in raiders’ hearts for years to come.

(Man, this floor is dirty!)

So have a stack of Halaani Whiskey on us Mr. Melee DPS Omen Winner… because if anyone is going to pay 100g in trash bills, you know just the man for the job.

(Mr Melee dps Omen winner!)

In other news: I now have my first piece of T10 gear, we cleared up to Deathbringer last night, and I have turned one year older! Huzzah!

After a 30-minute wait to find a 3rd healer (because, surprise surprise, we were down one again), red team once again standing at the double doors outside of Deathbringer Saurfang’s home.

Sidenote: did anyone else find it strange that even though most bosses are given a 25%-50% increase in physical size (to differentiate them from the PCs), Deathbringer got no such buff? Perhaps that’s to show that, even while empowered by the Lich King, Saurfang Sr. is still to be feared more than Saurfang Jr.

It took us about an hour and a half of wiping, but after a slight alteration to our raid makeup (ie, dropping a healer for a dps) we were able to drop Deathbringer and pick up our much-needed lootz. While I was thrilled to get the achievements for beating Deathbringer AND the one for getting less than 3 Marks of the Fallen Champion, I can’t help but think “how can you beat Deathbringer when you DO have 3 marks?” We were having issues getting the DPS required to drop the guy in 8 minutes… but you’re telling me there are groups who have the ability to pull that kind of dps AND have 3+ marks on their raid? In 10 man? Give them their own achievement for that called [Bloody Noses for All!]

‘Cause you get the marks for “blood” points… get it?
No?
Too lame?

Regardless, Deathbringer is a punk. But the blood points can be managed very well if you have a stun or two from the tanks. How we had it set up was thusly:

1) Tanks face the boss toward the doors, so the blood beasts pop up on the left and right of the boss.
2) The blood beast on the left (as we’re facing the boss) gets blasted first, we usually have a ranged dps on each side of the room and one in the center, so it gets pulled around fairly effectively. The other blood beast gets pulled away from the melee (healer agg) and rooted by the kibby.
3) If possible, a thundershock/Hammer of Justice stuns the beasts during their initial spawn, which give the ranged/healers time to take agg away from the melee.

More times than not, and especially when we got the 3rd healer replaced with a dps for the fight, the beasts died so fast they only handed Deathbringer 4-5 points, so we were at 30% before the first Mark. It’s a rough fight, one that could be made much MUCH easier with better gear so we can keep the 3rd healer, but as the frost badge gear is so prohibitively expensive… we’ll just have to abuse the hell out of the 5-day-weekly-raid-quest “bug” and gear as quickly as we can.

In other news: I finally hit honored with the Ashen Verdict! Which means not only do I get an upgraded ring, but I finally get to spend my 6 primordial saronite that I’ve been saving on my various 80s! 2 upgrades (complete with gems and enchants) which means hopefully I’ll be able to break faces more efficiently than before!

Furthermore, hopefully we’ll drop Festergut and Rotface this Wednesday so we can join the rest of the WoW community in the vampire wing.

Also: is anyone else getting sick of the constant parade of vampires these past few years have been shoving in our faces? Twilight, True Blood, WoW, Underworld, why so much love for the bloodsuckers?