Had a startling lack of handsome. It was to be expected, but the level of handsome was unexpectedly low.

There needs to be hot girls who play WoW competitively, so that I can finally have a driving force to play competitive. If all I get for being a pro wow-er is to meet those guys at MLG...

Pass.

Please don't suck my blood Serennia-sama-kun-chan-VAMPIRE-NOSTREDAMUS-SUBTLE-VAMPIRE-JOKE.

REAL POST SOON I PROMISE KIND OF NOT REALLY.

So I'm busy, and I'm pretty sure you're busy (with WoW). Maybe you're planning. Maybe not.

Who knows.

I don't.

QUICK SEASON 4 LETS GO:

18stam/5%stun resist as our only chance against lawlroguemagespamspamspam.

SPIRIT IS BETTER THAN STRAIGHT MP5 IN ALMOST EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. I THINK. I DON'T DO MATH SO I DON'T KNOW BUT SERIOUSLY.

For Feral Druids, stack AGI to the sky and pretend like you're viable.

Uhhh.

My shaman is going to stack spellhaste in every orifice possible, and then lead a 4DPS team to glory and distinction as the most skillful comp ever.

Oh, and I solo'd a Mage / Rogue team in the 1750s because that's just how cool I am.

Kbye. Pwyff... out.

PS: JASI HI

It’s interesting, you know.

 

 I went on a road trip with some friends for about a week, got a new job where I get paid to chat and play games, upped my handsomeness a little bit more, re-re-re-resurrected my testosterone-charged, gym-going alter-ego, and slept an incredibly small amount of time in the process.

 

Coincidentally, the joy I glean from my brief moments spent within the World of Warcraft are much akin to a fat man sucking on his fingers to ensure that he is on track to a cardiac arrest, or, perhaps,  leading the pack. Quite simply, because my life is getting more packed with other components, the uniqueness of each individual piece is made more enjoyable. I’m relatively certain that this is how Blizzard is directing our lovely Warcraft to be played, and I’m absolutely for it.

 

Unfortunately, I suppose you could say, when one drastically shifts from one demographic to another, you’re obviously left with legions of the old timers, crying and sobbing in the corner, wondering why you’ve forsaken them so.

 

Glancing around at the scene of TBC, it’s vaguely depressing to see how these desolate PVE castaways are really dealing with their new reality. Many take it rather stoically; they continue to love their PVE, and accept that no longer does this world reward them for their ability to be hardcore. Where fame used to be granted to the T3 geared terrors in BG60s, these days you won’t get famous unless you’re handsome, like me, or talented, like me, or you’re a qtpie like Hafu-sama-chan-kun the Golden.

 

In actuality, I’d like to modify my original statement from “it’s depressing to see how these desolate PVE castaways are dealing with their new reality” to this: really, I don’t mind all of you who continue to PVE; I just pity those who refuse to accept the new reality.

 

Your gear used to earn you respect! Your PVE accomplishments may have earned you respect! But these days, it really does feel like end game raiding and end game gear is available to those who simply have the time. Say what you will, feel free to froth at the mouth while complaining about how difficult it is to coordinate a 25-man raid, but seriously; raiding is tough because you’ve got such a medley of personalities with varying degrees of retarded. When my guild was attempting Archimonde, we had a priest die three times in a row (and consequently wipe the raid) because he was unable to judge the proper time to use his tears. If you haven’t learned the fight yet; you have a solid 5-10 seconds to click these god damn tears, and the fact that you’re flying in the air is a relatively good indication of when you should think about clicking them.

 

As well, PVE is really far too static to present a significant challenge to the smarter demographic of WoW players. If you’ve decided to do it completely ad hoc without strategies, a la world firsts, then you may be on to something. That something, however, very quickly dissipates if the challenge itself does not vary over the weeks, months, years. The reason why PVP is considered to be slightly more ‘skill based’ than PVE is simply by the fact that PVP pits you against other players, and no matter what, playing video games against other players is much more challenging that playing PVE.

 

Why?

 

It’s just because even though the mobs in PVE hit for 10k-15k on clothies; that’s not difficult, that’s annoying. WoW in itself is not very skill based, but what little skill there is involved, a significant amount of it pans out when you’re put against an individual capable of completely surprising you time and time again.

 

And no, I don’t god damn mean RNG procs. DIE.

 

Anyways, that’s really where the challenge is: People.

 

I honestly believe that raiding these days doesn’t bring up significant advantages for most classes, except, really, raid progression. My Druid only uses about 3-4 pieces of PVE gear that I’ve accumulated in my months of raiding, but my PVE set is considered end-game Sunwell capable. At the end of it all, really, what does it come down to?

 

Raiding has no real challenge value, except for the first two to three attempts. Thereafter, raiding becomes a weekly grind.

 

Raiding offers no significant upgrades for many classes and for the ones that do benefit, many top tier teams can work around these. There are instances where individuals can take advantage of these PVE upgrades, but it is absolutely achievable with full arena gear.

 

So why do we raid? In fact, I tout myself to be casual and an intelligent player, so why do I continue to do it?

 

Honestly, it’s because I just enjoy playing with my guild. I log on to raid for my piddly 2 hours a night because I enjoy playing a game with 25 people. My guild has about two more bosses to go before we even see Illidan, but we raid a grand total of 6 hours a week. I log on to raid for people just like I log on to play arena with people. That’s the only reason I like to play these games, otherwise I might as well go play on my console.

 

What you ******* need to stop doing is playing or raiding for some insignificant pixels of gear. If you’re super desperate for e-fame, a la Lawlrennia, you can feel free to tackle long forgotten instances to prove that you had fun first. For those of you who aren’t desperate to get famous, try raiding with your buddies and tell me what the difference is between that and if you had been doing arena or goofing off somewhere else. WoW is for people; the internet is for porn.

 

That made no sense, but it did.

 

P.S. Updated Druid handbook soon, might be moving domains soon, and I should be back.

P.P.S. If anyone’s been waiting for The Man Who Never Was, PT. 6, I will be finishing that ASAP.

They're taught by Pwyff!

You can also say "they're inspired by Pwyff," or "they're imitating Pwyff," or my personal favorite, "they are Pwyff." But then again, that last one pretty much means that I'm awesome. Which I am, don't get me wrong. But I'm also humble, so watch out for that.

On a more or less equivalent personal note, people have been asking me if I'm 'competing' in this blog writing contest of sorts. I'm afraid I don't really understand what you mean when you even say 'compete,' because I am inherently 'competing' the moment I set down anything on this badly-thought-out-color-scheme of a blog.

If you'd like to modify your adjective to something a bit more pertinent. Say... "Pwyff, do you care about this competition?" or perhaps "Pwyff, are you actively seeking to earn teh phat lewts?" then I would have an answer for you as: No.

Furthermore, believe me when I say that this isn't a 'no-that-really-means-yes-but-I'm-telling-you-no so-that-you'll-be-impressed-by-my-nonchalance.' Nay, this is a 'no' that really pretty much means what it says; I have heard about the GR competition, but I am unchanged by it's revelatory news. The reason as to my apathy really lies in the fact that a competition like this is pretty much counter-intuitive to my goals.

My goal, my desire and my life is dedicated to, really, one thing only: quality writing. It was because of this desire that I shifted my gaze from news journalism to gaming journalism. The former has become quagmired in the commercialism, the sensationalism and the fear mongering themes of the news genre; I can't stand it. I'm not saying that all news media is like this, but you can't deny me when I say that most main-stream news (papers, television and radio) are entirely devoid of personality and actual feeling. We as a community have expanded to global proportions, but somewhere along the way, we became entirely desensitized to each other. We are inundated with tragedy after tragedy, commercial after commercial, every clip and video separated by a smiling row of dentures, gleaming into your eyes, piercing your soul as she says "And now, this." Then we are exposed to more, more, more.

That and the genre really stifles creativity. I tried it, it's boring.

This competition is trying to do to my precious gaming journalism and online blogging what consumer commercialism did to my news media: it will attempt to enforce deadlines and sensationalism, and then it will reward those who worship these two greedy demons. Already I see individuals trying to slam out badly written article after article, attempting to pilfer greater slices of the pie, working not for the happiness of creation, but pursuing fame, money and attention.

If you are one of these people, please stop it. You're ******* with my dream.

I am writing for the simple joy of creation. I love writing and I love writing about things; anything. I chose gaming journalism because the depth of my knowledge of music is limited to the fact that I love Raine Meida, 3 Doors Down and Nujabes. My political knowledge is decent, but I can't even pretend that I like to watch watered down political debates. Finally, and I believe this is my biggest reason for choosing gaming journalism; there exists those who are already working hard to maintain the quality. Kotaku, The Escapist and 1UP are amazing bastions of solid journalism, but when you truly get to the heart of things, this man, Jerry Holkins, is the reason I continue to love this media form. Douglas Adams and Orson Scott Card keep me pursuing a career as a novelist, but as long as Tycho Brahe exists as a character, I understand that gaming journalism is safe until I can enter it.

A competition to see who gets the most hits, the most sensationalism and the most attention, is not a competition for me.

Allow me then, to give you all some tips. I don't presume that I'm the best blogger on here or anywhere, but I do know that 'quality' is not the first thing that comes to mind when we consider our beloved WoWRiot. These tips may not garner you hordes of fangirls and cocaine, but they will let you understand how to write something that you can look back on and say "that's some good quality **** right there."

Write only when you want to.

It is understood with anything that things have deadlines. Assignments, homework, business reports, phone calls, everything. But the fact is, if you rush yourself and immerse yourself in the 'get it done' mindset, then you will undermine the quality of your work. Every piece of writing is a bit of your soul, your creativity, tempered and produced with the intention of sharing. How do you rush that? Pursue what you feel passionate about, write about what you feel passionate about, and allow your interest to guide your deadlines. If you can't make something now, don't just spew out crap because you need to. Take an hour, go walking, play some WoW, hang out with friends, read a book, punch a baby, who knows; just stop bludgeoning your brain, and let it breathe.

Place yourself in your writing.

I could seriously care less if someone told me about what someone else thinks. I care about what you think. I want to know what your take is, and I want to hear your voice in your work. News media tells you that they are unbiased and fair, but it is impossible to achieve this when we are all inherently biased. A camera angle can impart a biased nature; a wrongly chosen word reflects the speaker's intentions. Understand that you can't simply 'stop' being biased when you write, so acknowledge it and use it. I want to see your personality shine through, and I want to see why this bothers you, why this makes you happy.

Learn Diversity.

Do you know what beating a dead horse means? It means that this particular equine being has been beaten to death by you, and then, because you think that it needs even more beatings, you beat it. In layman's terms, this means that you've hit the point of diminishing returns. Kind of. A comedian does not walk up the front stage and tell the same joke over and over.

"Why couldn't the bike get up in the morning?"
"He was two tired."

You might get laughs the first time, but if you turn around and ask the same question, but perhaps say "scooter" in place of bike, chances are, you're an idiot. Pursue diversity, change up your topics, write about a plethora of different things and understand that some may garner more attention then others. Whatever you do, however, don't replicate your most popular stuff, because then you're just beating a dead whatever.

Learn Basic Conversational Grammer.

I don't even need to explain this. I don't care about nitpicking when to use apostrophes or not, but if your **** reads "Yet like all the Asian beauty pageants I have seen, the most plain looking chicks after a 45 minutes make-up session can look pretty good that is why most women who went to that studio also ordered solo shots," then I'm going to hunt you down with a comma and violate you with it.

Tell the god damned truth whenever you can.

I could honestly care less as to how popular you make yourself out to be, but it's incredibly easy to tell when someone is lying to themselves or they're modifying the truth to make themselves sound better. Just be honest and authentic; it's easier to maintain and it's easier to trust you.

Do these sound like difficult criteria to follow?
No.

Are they difficult to follow?
**** yes.

It's so easy to get caught up in the comments, the fame and the glamor; but are you going to meet these people? Will they make a tangible difference on your life? Writing is about creating relationships with those who read your work and understanding that your role as a creator is something significant in this world.

Please don't destroy the integrity of journalism when there are so many people who have devoted their lives to sustaining it.

You're going to have to destroy the Druid class.

The fact is, within the current meta-game being played right now, Druids are by far the strongest healers. That's just how it is.

Imagine, if you will, your high school yearbooks. Maybe your graduating year was subjected to this, maybe not, but a good deal of you guys will remember those student voted awards that were given to the graduating class; "Most likely to get pregnant by age 20," or "Most handsome Pwyff ever," etc etc. If such a yearbook was to be printed for our Warcraft alumni, can you imagine how many snarky awards my beloved Druid would be featured in?

Most independent healer: Druid
Most handsome: Pwyff
Most mobile healer: Druid
Most likely to get pregnant by age 20: Pwyff
Most likely to get off a drink during a fight: Druid
Most likely to get hit by a car: Pwyff
Best Crowd Control Spell (arguably): Druid
Most popular healing class in 2v2 and 3v3: Druid
Most handsome Pwyff: Pwyff
Most likely to get nerfed: Druid.

In reality, the car one was the only award I won in my school years; and this was because I refused to stop using my $5 roller blades in the wintertime. But the fact remains that we're just too strong! If we're overrepresented in the highest echelons, it makes sense to nerf us until this **** resolves itself!

Right?

Wrong.

Well, kind of.

In a way.

This is probably blasphemous to say, and you guys can go ahead and get uppity and panty-knotty..-y, but it doesn't seem like these recurring nerfs are doing anything for keeping our domination in check. In fact, I'd go so far to say that with every nerf that has come for Restoration Druids in the past little while has, really, only seen more and more Druids gain popularity. The only class that I would say can even remotely compete with Druids as the dominant healing class across all three brackets would be the Priest.

Hmmm, I wonder why the Priest would still be as powerful as the Druid... Does... anyone care to check the past changelogs and see who has gotten the most class modifications in the past arena seasons?

Could it be...

THE PRIEST?

...

No, it's the Paladin, I'm messing with you.

...

Kidding.

Imagine that! The Priest has gotten some of the most significant changes of any healing class in the game, and woah! Imagine that! The Priest is one of the only comparable healing classes in terms of overall representation across all three brackets!

Imagine that!

...

Imagine that!

...

I'll stop being obnoxious and get to my point.

WoW ARENA IS AN EVOLVING GAME.

The problem with Blizzard is that they're still stuck in the PVE aspect of it all. In the past, you could make slight nerfs and slight adjustments to classes based upon what you wanted them to be doing in the dungeons.

"Well ****," the developers said, "Druids are under-represented in raids Pre-TBC, how do we fix that?"

And Voila! They tweaked our beloved class so that we could OT and DPS in the same spec with a simple gear change as Feral, or they made us incredibly mobile as Restoration spec by giving us Lifebloom and a form that made HoTs all the more mana efficient. But this was not the end of it all; what if all raid bosses required a single tank, or all bosses had no mobility involved? Then these proposed Druid changes would have fallen flat on their face, because what good is mobility if mobility is not demanded? Thus, in conjunction with these changes, Blizzard made bosses where mobility was absolutely key (hello Archimonde), or instances where an off-tank was needed for some bosses, but DPS was needed for others (hello ZA).

In this way, Blizzard was able to balance the class by tweaking it's overall playstyle, and then configuring dungeons and instances to suit these playstyles. However, do understand this: you cannot have one without the other. At least, if you want to have proper balance.

But now, can we see what's wrong when we apply this same mindset to arena?

Anyone?

Billy, in the back?

"Because arena cannot be tweaked in terms of how it is supposed to be play. The Blizzard team is limited to modifying the classes and hoping that players will respond by changing their playstyles in kind. However, like the cliche goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. In this way, Blizzard cannot enforce a specific playstyle or strategy in arena, because it is a player driven - and therefore player evolved - game."

Thank you Billy.

Yes, that's right. But the problem here is that arena has evolved (devolved?) to such an alien landscape that even the WoW developers cannot keep up with the trends. Thus, you get consistent nerfs to the Druid class in the hopes that this will finally convince everyone to try something else, but to no avail. SO WHAT DO YOU DO HOME FRIES?

WHAT
DO
YOU
DO
?

I dunno, buff the **** out of everything. Priests got significant buffs and changes to keep up with this evolving arena, but Shamans and Paladins have not gotten real, meaty modifications in a long time. Make it viable for the strongest classes in game, the Warrior and the Rogue, to play with classes other than Druids, make them more tempting rather than uglifying the **** out of me.

Please.

Actually I just got really bored suggesting anything for anyone else. All I'm really concerned about is how much you're messing with my enjoyment.

Stop it.