I know it has been a very long time since I posted. I haven’t raided in a while and it has dried up my pool of inspiration a bit, I don’t think I’m the only one who is feeling under inspired right now.
Blizzard is still struggling with the best way to handle expanding their biggest game. While the flood of “leaked” shiny new abilities and items may create buzz for their product, it has the (I hope) unintended effect of robbing player motivation for the game in it’s current state. Player burnout is on the rise again. The motivating effects of the Sunwell Content patch are no longer being felt by Mid-Level Raiding Guilds, the guilds working on the first in Mount Hyjal or Black Temple who are not likely to see the inside of Sunwell. These guilds whose players have experienced all of the Sunwell content they are likely to are facing serious problems with player motivation. Their Raiders have done their Dailies, earned their Exalted Reputation, and have farmed out Magister’s Terrace for their Pheonix drop, and now all they have to look forward to when they sit down for an evening is hard work and an uphill grind and all for what?
Before the release of The Burning Crusade, and after the last content patch many guilds faced a similar situation. There were shining new items on the horizon, and the greens players would be picking up on solo quests at level 61 were going to be better than anything the average Mid-Level Raider (AQ20, ZG, Onyxia) would see without putting in serious effort. Guilds who could have made it through AQ40 before the expansion stopped raiding altogether. Vanilla WoW was a lame duck. During this time the Buzz for The Burning Crusade was great, people were truly excited for it and in anticipation they walked away from the game…
Blizzard promises us that this time things will be different. Blue posters say that current end-game gear will be relevant for at least a few levels in Wrath. This may help to keep people working for gear, but that is work. The problem is that most people see the new, seemingly godly, abilities coming in Wrath and they are, understandingly, excited about them. Players are not excited about that next Boss in Black Temple, not buzzing about the recent opening of the last gate in Sunwell, it seems that nothing in BC WoW can hold most players enthusiasm like the possibility of Druids have a Group HoT, or Warlocks finally getting some loving (again). So in a way BC WoW is as already as dead as Vanilla WoW.
This lack of enthusiasm is manifesting itself as player burnout, lots of people are taking a break from the game all at once. With so many people leaving the game I find myself searching for my own motivation. With my guild progressing at an all slow pace I find myself reevaluating my WoW Goals. Until very recently my goals were to;
- Improve my gear to make me a better healer
- See all the BC Endgame Content.
Now that my goal of seeing all the expansion seems unlikely to happen and with the upcoming expansion my goals have changed, my focus is shifting away from endgame raiding and BC Content.
- Improve my gear to make leveling to 80 easier
- See as much Endgame content as I can before the expansion.
Looking ahead to the Wrath expansion I have a decision to make; Do I suffer myself and try to level Restoration specialized; Do I compromise and level Balance/Resto; -Or- Do I take the historically easiest route and level feral?
I haven’t actually decided yet but the question has changed my gear selection choices already, instead of thinking about the gear that will help me to heal better I am thinking about the gear that will make leveling the easiest when the cap goes up.
In the next expansion I would like to be on the leading edge of progression instead of the receding edge which is where I feel like I am now. In order to do that I feel that the key is to make it to the level cap as quickly as possible. If I’m going to sprint to 80 then it would probably be best to go it feral.
I’m conflicted about this decision becuase of the implication it has on my game play in the mean time if I decide that I’m going to level feral then why would I stay resto and pass up drops for my feral set which will give me an edge moving forward.
The fact is that my two current goals are at odds with each other. My best chance for seeing some more of BT and MH is to stay Resto. If you put any stock in be.imba.hu then I’m already geared enough to see some of Sunwell before the next big thing drops. If on the other hand I want to try and ensure that I will see all of the Wrath Content then I should throw in the towel on this whole resto thing and focus on getting the best feral gear I can.
Until I commit to one goal or the other I guess I’ll continue grabbing up badges and maybe start Grinding the BGs to invest in some decent feral gear.
How about you? What are your goals between now and the Wrath of the Lich King expansion? Does anyone else plan on respeccing to level from 70-80?
8 comments
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May 23, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Jacob
Feral is certainly fastest for solo-leveling, but you should think about whether you have a regular team who may be able to group with you while you level. With so many people re-rolling Death Knights, I’m betting that there will be an excess of DPS, and adequate number of tanks, and a scarcity of healers.
May 23, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Jacob
…and I totally forgot to say anything about my goals between now and the expansion. I think this is an unintentional confirmation of your comment about “robbing player motivation for the game in it’s current state”.
I’d like to finish Kara. I’d like to see some of the 25-man raids, but am doubting whether I’ll be able to, if the mid-level raiding guilds become demotivated.
May 26, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Pookies
During times such as these, the nature of a guild really shines through. The general sentiment in my guild seems to be that, yes, we will continue raiding until the night before WotLK is released, because it’s something we enjoy doing together. If we see Illidan and Kil’jaeden along the way … that’s just icing on the cake (I plan on our at least catching a glimipse of Illidan)!
As for 70-80, it all depends on what my situation is come WotLK release. If I have a regular group for leveling up to 80 with, then I will probably stay resto. Otherwise, I do have a fairly decent feral set in the bank for soloing, if needed.
May 26, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Demure
My issue isn’t what gear to get in preparation for the expansion, it’s what gear to get while grinding through to 80. Do I get the resto trinkets because those are probably what I will need when raiding at 80 or do I get the feral trinkets to help me as feral while I level? Luckily, I have a group that I will be leveling with BUT there are now 3 healers and 2 DPS. I will probably be the one respeccing to feral to be able to tank but makes for some interesting gear selection while leveling.
May 27, 2008 at 10:20 am
lifebloomer
@ Jacob- I’m betting you’re right in the idea that there will be a need for healers at 80 for healing, but I imagine that like warriors many people will choice to play melee dps because it is the easiest style of play to master. Keeping rocking Karazhan that place is a gold mine of gear because of the badge loots and you can easily build four sets of epics if you have a regular group to do it with. I think seeing Magtheridon and Gruuls should be well within your reach if, as it was pre-bc, people start pugging the 25 entry level raids.
@ Pookies- Once again you find the heart of the issue. If my guild was as cohesive as it should/could be we would not be losing people to burnout, and people would be motivated to keep raiding because they enjoy the time together.
I would love to have a steady group to level with and build a decent damage/healing set and then base my spec around dual roles. At this point nothing is certain and I want to be prepared so that I don’t have to rely on anyone if it comes to that.
@ Demure- That is definitely a mistake I made working my way through BC content. I passed up some of the best entry level healing gear for middle of the road feral upgrades because I was leveling feral. My goal was to Tank and DPS the raid content and I did that for a while, then when it became necessary to switch I found myself in a serious gear hole.
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Right now I’m working on projects that positively benefit whatever direction I choose. I have my Shattered Sun Rep up to exalted and picked up all three neck pieces now I’m grinding Aldor rep so that they can all proc; three birds with one stone. After that, who knows.
June 19, 2008 at 12:46 am
Wastepaper
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Wastepaper.
September 10, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Otoah
With the new gear having +Spell Power instead of +Heals or +Spell Damage, it should be a lot easier to switch between Resto and Balance without having to worry about having gear sets for each. I plan to stick with Resto all the way to 80. However, once I get enough of the +Spellpower gear, I most likely will switch between Balance for soloing and Resto for groups. i doubt I’ll do feral at all.
There’s also word that you may be able to have 2 specs but nothing really concrete has come from Blizzard on that topic. I’ve heard that you would be able to switch specs on the fly and also that you would save to specs and pay a fee to a trainer to switch between the two. Not sure which one of those I prefer if this turns out to be true.
October 20, 2008 at 3:23 am
Adam
With the new change from damage + healings spells, the bonus damage you get is high, very high. I currently have 1000, with the mana regen of a resto druid. I switched balance and am averaging out 1200 DPS on boss fights, AoE is amazing and with Glyph of Healing Touch, Its a 1 second cast with talents, and 0.5 with Nature’s grace.