Women of Draenor??

With the announcement of the new Warlords of Draenor Expansion there is a lot of excitement and also a fair amount of shrieking. I'm hearing shrieks of joy about character models and garrisons and the change to toys and heirlooms. But right now the shrieks seem to be about gender equality and they are not joyful in the least.

If you follow the Warlords of Draenor link, you'll come to a lovely informative page. It's got a trailer and news and maps and art. The expansion looks like it'll be awesome.

Looking at that page you see it is full of Orcs. This makes sense. Garrosh has gone back in time and stopped the Orcs from drinking Manoroth's blood, and given them a tech boost. So the Orcs have formed the Iron Horde and are now rampaging across Draenor with the the intent of bursting into Azeroth and rampaging there too. So we get Iron Horde orcs as baddies.

However, that page is very male dominated. All the orcs on that page and all the humans are male. There are a few shots of a female draenei. But no orc women or human women or any other women. And a large number of people are full of unhappy shrieking about this.

Now as Big Bear Butt points out, this is Blizz's story. They can write it however they want to. And they do! That's fine. We the players are only entitled to enjoy the story as it is.

BUT.

Blizz doesn't always get their own story right, as the existence of the Wildhammer Fact Checker proves. They sometimes need some help to be reminded about all the info that their giant universe has. And I think they need to be reminded that Orc society is matriarchal. As any Horde player saw in Nagrand, Greatmother Geyah was the one in charge at Garadar. Yes there are warchiefs, but the actual town and village is controlled by the women. The warchief is just there to be in control the wars. (Unless you get craziness like Garrosh...)

So where is Geyah? Or Draka for that matter? If Durotan is around then Draka should be too. And as Anne Stickney puts it so much more eloquently than I can Where is Aggra?

I hope that all of the female orcs (and some non-orcs too!) show up sooner rather than later, but the fact that they aren't on the main Warlords of Draenor page doesn't give me a lot of hope as to the magnitude of their role in the story.

Yes, it's Blizz's story and they can tell it however they want. But it'll be a better and more interesting story if it isn't merely a boys clubhouse.

Warlords of Draenor

Blizzcon has come and gone with a whole lot of new things announced. I'm actually pretty excited about the next WoW Expansion. There are a lot of things to look forward to.

I have to admit that the thing I'm most looking forward to is the updated character models. The Vanilla and BC races are currently looking a bit tired. It wasn't so bad before, but when comparing an orc or troll to the pandaren is it painfully obvious that there needs to be more polygons for the original races.

The next most exciting thing I saw announced is the changes to raiding. Blizzard has finally entirely caved in and the flex model is going to be here to stay. Current flex will become the new normal. Current normal will become the new heroic, and current heroic will go up to a fixed size of 20 people and be called Mythic. I am overjoyed at both the extension of flex to two gradations of raiding and at the fact that the single raid size Blizz settled on is 20 people. I think that fits perfectly with the 10-25 flexible sizes of the other raids. It basically means that if you're going after Mythic raiding you'll take your entire roster into the flexible Normal level raids.

Something that entirely surprised me about the new WoW announcements was the Garrison. I think the comment I saw that best describes it is that Blizzard decided that Player Housing was boring, so instead they went with a Player TOWN. A full on walled town that you build and populate. This has some seriously awesome potential, especially since you can actually invite your friends to visit. The party or raid leader can allow a full 40 man raid into their Garrison. If I were into RP I'd be dancing for joy about that. I am looking forward to gathering followers and sending them on missions.

The one thing I'm a bit dubious about is the storyline itself. Yes, yes, Garrosh escapes before his trial, and travels into the past to stop his Daddy from drinking Mannoroth's blood. He also gives the orcs a big technology boost, and thus the Iron Horde is formed. I just am dubious about why we try to fight the Iron Horde after Garrosh has mucked about with the past. My rampant speculation is that this is the expansion that we see Nozdormu turn into Murozond.

See, if Nozdormu were still fully and truly on our side he'd help by sending a strike team back in time before Garrosh corrupted the timeline. Maybe he can't stop Garrosh from breaking free, but an assassin team waiting for him to appear in Draenor past would put a stop to his machinations.

We know that in the future Nozdormu turns into Murozond. And we know that Murozond still has the ability to control time. (See events in the End Time dungeon.) So clearly either Noz is holding out on us currently, or he's about to go bat-shit crazy and try to disrupt the time stream in some twisted effort to get his time controlling powers back. Either way I suspect that we'll see an end boss of some raid that is Nozdormu/Murozond.

Taran Zhu and Sunwalker Dezco Dialogue

The following dialogue happened on the terrace of Shrine of Two Moons after patch 5.3. Taran Zhu, was understandably peeved with Garrosh's actions of digging up the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Taran Zhu says: Tauren! What have your people done? You have dredged open a scar within our sacred Vale!
Sunwalker Dezco says: Lord Zhu, please understand - the orc "Warchief" who ordered the deed no longer speaks for the whole of the Horde. Many voices are rising up against him.
Taran Zhu says: Your politics are no concern of mine. Your Horde has disrespected the sanctity of this place. You are no longer welcome here - leave at once!
Sunwalker Dezco says: Give us time, Lord Zhu. Give us the opportunity to bring Hellscream to justice.

Taran Zhu says: Sunwalker, I respect your people. You have aided us in our campaign against the Sha and the Thunder King. Othewise I would've already ordered the Shado-Pan to purge this entire shrine. But my patience is at an end. The Horde must leave.
Sunwalker Dezco says: Please. Give us time to make this right.
Taran Zhu stares grimly into the distance.
Taran Zhu says: Very well. You have until season's end. No longer.
Taran Zhu says: We pandaren are no strangers to dealing with tyrants. The coming battle will try your souls. May the celestials guide your actions.

I'm almost sad that Dezco persuaded Taran Zhu not to kick the Horde out of the Vale. It would have sparked fighting if he had tried, but perhaps the heart wouldn't have been found.

Throne of Thunder: Lei Shen Dialogue

Once you fight your way through the Throne of Thunder the last boss you face will be Lei Shen the Thunder King himself. He's on a platform channeling lightning into the four conduits at the corners.

To get to that platform you need to use the Displacement Pad. Of course, as soon as you get near it Lei Shen is all peeved with you.

Lei Shen yells: You! You have earned my ire. I will make an example of you, such that all who look upon my might will tremble and submit.

Regardless of Lei Shen's ire we all displace over to his platform.

Lei Shen yells: I am Lei Shen, slayer of kings and gods. You have made a grave mistake.

Once you start the fight Lei Shen is, of course, full of bluster about how he's going to wipe the floor with you.

Lei Shen yells: Submit!

During the first phase the AoE that Lei Shen will use is Thunderstruck.

Lei Shen yells: Kneel!
Lei Shen yells: Die!
Lei Shen yells: You would challenge me in my own sanctum? Witness your folly!

The first phase lasts until you bring him down to 65% health. He'll attempt to Decapitate the tank he is is on periodically. So swap tanks and run away. Once he gets to 65% health he'll move to the center of the room and use all the abilities from each conduit.

Lei Shen yells: Bah! I will crush you myself. Let us see how you fare against Lightning.
Lei Shen yells: Kneel before me!

If you manage to survive the intermission, Lei Shen will burn one conduit out and then come after you again in a repeat of the first phase.

Lei Shen yells: My judgement is final.

Lei Shen yells: Unworthy.

When someone dies Lei Shen is rather rude and judgemental.

Lei Shen yells: My power cannot be contained!
Lei Shen yells: Lightning, seek my foes!

Lightning Whip isn't too terrible, just don't stand in the bad, and you'll be fine.

Lei Shen yells: No! You are UNWORTHY! I... AM... THE THUNDER KING!

After the second intermission and subsequent destruction of a second conduit, you've only got half the room to work with. Hopefully you've actually got a contiguous half of the room, or the last phase will be rough. Regardless Lei Shen is rather angry and a bit desperate at this point.

Lei Shen yells: Wind, heed my call!
Lei Shen yells: Lightning, seek my foes!
Lei Shen yells: I sought only to finish... the work of the Gods...

In the last phase he'll try to blow you off the platform with Violent Gale Winds. If you fail to fall to your death he will use Lightning Whip and Thunderstruck to try to destroy the raid.

Once you've defeated him Lei Shen will basically say he was just trying to do the right thing. I don't believe him, but it was a pretty epic fight.

Rivendare's DeathCharger

Being a Death Knight has a few advantages. Being an unstoppable juggernaut of death is all well and good, but in this case having Death Gate made it a lot more efficient to run Stratholm dead side over and over.

How not to be an Asshole Tank: LFR Version

It has now been a full expansion plus the preceding raid tier (Dragon Soul) that we have had access to LFR. Generally I am not a fan of LFR. I prefer normals or the spiffy new flex. I want to raid with my guildies, who are skilled and fun to raid with. However, the Wrathion legendary quests have required some LFR and I have done some in general for gear and valor points. When I zone into any instance I have a few expectations. No matter if it is a scenario, a 5man dungeon, or a raid, I expect that the people there have made some sort of effort to learn and equip their class. I still have these expectations in LFR, though my standards are a bit lower.

Wear appropriate gear. If you are a tank that gear is likely to have some combo of mastery, dodge, and parry. With haste for pallies and crit for bears and monks.

Make sure that the gear you will be wearing is gemmed and enchanted. It doesn't have to be perfectly optimally enchanted; some of the weapon enchants are expensive, and this is just LFR we are talking about. But you really, really need to have gems in all your sockets.

Check your reforges (in combination with your gems) and try to get the correct amount of the right stats. Ask Mr Robot is helpful for this, as well as several auto reforge addons. If you don't like Mr Robot's stat weights at least use something else to make sure you're hit/expertise capped.

The important thing (and what sparked this post) is that when you queue for LFR you're signing up to be there until the last boss of the wing is dead. Right now in Siege of Orgrimmar the queue is tank blocked. So if a tank queues and then drops after one or two bosses the rest of the raid is left sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting and waiting for another tank. When you click that tank check box you're saying you'll be there for the wing. You're not saying that you'll flake after the first boss doesn't drop the loot you want.

I thought that the above expectations weren't excessive, but my experiences in LFR recently have proven me wrong. The dearth of tanks in LFR seems to be caused by a large number of tanks randomly dropping after a single boss or a single wipe. Some of them left the raid after being embarrassed when they were called out for dying too easily and it was pointed out they had no gems or enchants. In the five LFR I've run over the past two weeks I've not completed a single one with the same two tanks that it was started with.

Bear Kyrie

Over the past few days I've swapped one of Khyrie's specs from cat to bear. She kept her other spec as resto so she now has dual specs of healer and tank. If I wasn't already used to questing in the world as a tank from Mornara it could be problematic but between that and usually running around with one of DraNgNon's toons it shouldn't be an issue.

Khyrie's old cat spec was handy for dailies and a bit of questing, but I have come to realize that I am just not a fan of playing melee characters. Of course, I used to say that about anything other than playing mage, so we will see if that stays true in the future.

Anyway, over the weekend I did a bit of reading on the Elitist Jerks druid forums. And in an unsurprising turn of events the gear for bears and cats is pretty similar, so all the cat gear I'd been picking up from Timeless Isle stood Khyrie in good stead when she went bear. I did have to swap a bunch of gems and enchants and reforge pretty much anything. Because I'd only been doing dailies as a cat I'd kept that gear with only enough hit to deal with a level 92 mob, not a level 93 boss.

I also had to get a whole bunch of glyphs from Ikoli. With four druid specs I'd been slacking and hadn't picked up all of the bear glyphs. Of course once I had them all I needed to figure out what to actually use. Khyrie currently has some actual bear glyphs, but I am not sure if there aren't better ones for her. And I'm sure that I'll want to swap them out on a fight by fight basis if I ever take her into a normal mode raid.

Once I had glyphs and gear and talents sorted out I set up Khyrie's ability bars for bear. I've tried to keep the same sort of abilities in the same place as I have it for Morn's blood spec. Of course it can't be an exact mapping, but I have her basic single target attacks on my left hand, aoe and interrupts and debuffs on the right, and CDs on the left hand shift. My hope was that even if I wasn't sure about what abilities to use when I went into a dungeon I'd still hit roughly the right thing just by muscle memory flailing.

So then Khyrie was set up to bear tank. I'd even visited the barber shop to keep from being Christmas Bear. It was time, time to actually queue up for a heroic. I made DraNgNon bring Kuan along, just in case Khyrie totally was squishy or unable to hold aggro.

I ended up doing two instances as bear, one with Kuan healing and one with Ikoli healing. It wasn't too bad. I will say that it is a whole different kettle of fish to tank when you're outgeared by 30 or more ilvls. This is not an issue for Morn, but it was difficult to figure out the correct sequence while struggling to hold aggro against some well geared dps. At least their gear kept them from dying when I failed to have enough taunts or aggro to keep the mobs on me.

Despite a bit of initial grumpyness I had a pretty good time bear tanking. The basic bear tools seem to be pretty decent. I don't feel familiar enough with them yet to really compare bear vs. DK. However, I'm sure that familiarity and some comparisons will come with more tanking. I'm also sure that DraNgNon will drag me into a LFR. It should be amusing to have Tylara and Khyrie tanking together.