I’ve taken my mage a lot further than I could ever have imagined just half a year ago. She’s totally decked out in epic gear, and it’s not her first purples either, it’s rather the third generation or so.
According to be.imba it’s almost doubtful that she’s got any really great upgrades in Black Temple. (Though I must admit that I doubt the advice from that site, they seem to constantly overvalue gear imo). She’s exalted, if not with every single fraction, at least with the major ones, so she can get cheap flasks for raiding and has access to the alchemy recipes and enchants she needs. She’s got an epic flying mount which can take her anywhere in a brief moment.
Considering the content she’s doing right now, (T5 instances and just started in Mount Hyjal) there’s absolutely no need for doing anything more at all about her. She’s clearly good as it is – or even overpowered. Running heroics for instance is getting less and less interesting since it’s just a run-through without any real challenges at all (unless you’re pugging it).
So wouldn’t it be about time that I let her be and concentrated all my efforts in levelling up my rogue alt? Why bother at all about Larísa, apart from the raiding nights? I could farm a bit of gold and basilisk meat and herbs to get her the consumables she needs, but except for that, shouldn’t she deserve a rest?
No. I can’t. Because I’m one of those condemned players who just can’t let go of things and see that they are “good enough”. I seem to be compelled to keep on making her even more perfect.
So right now I’m scratching my head, thinking about how I should spend the hundred badges I’ve currently got. I’ve got so many nice trousers to use – Leggings of Tirsifal, Legwraps of the Sweltering flame and Spellstrike pants among others. Still – there COULD be an idea to have a couple of badge trousers with a great deal of spellhaste in them, Pantaloons of Arcane Annihilation. I wouldn’t use them in boss fights (much worse stats, and they’ll just make me go oom). But I’m thinking about a specific situation, the trash mob waves in Mount Hyjal we’re dealing with now. Perhaps I could make some more damage with my blizzard if it went a bit quicker? Mana wasn’t any issue at all last time we were there. Then I’d switch back to my ordinary gear when it was time for boss fights. It could possibly increase my total damage, a little at least. But there’s also a spellhaste trinket at 75 badges, which would give 45 spell haste as well. How does that one perform compared to the trousers? And what about the 30 badges that will be over? Perhaps a couple of gems to use in some exchange gear? Decisions, decisions.
Deep inside I realize I’m engaging myself into luxury problems. I’m obviously overdoing stuff. It’s a bit stupid, to be honest. But I just can’t stop. And I keep asking myself: where did it come from, this strange need for perfection?
Have you felt the same way or do you have some kind of blessing that protects you from it?
1 day ago
7 comments:
Personally I would prefer one ferrari than ten hatchback runabouts.
Sure they all get me from A to B... but that's no fun on it's own.
And so I have one main, no alts, and I spend all my time making that main as close to a ferrari as I can :)
So I vote - stick with your mage, you will never run out of ways to improve her ;)
A very strange thing happened, when I pressed the button to comment I had a car-thing in my mind, and zupa just used the same thing. But my car idea came from a movie (shame I don't remember which), where the supporting character gave a Ferrari to the action hero with the words "Better you get it blown up than let it rot under and a middle-aged f@#$ who never get it out of second gear"
Do you get her out of second gear?
The original plot of the game is killing bosses with previous gear. You go to instances in quest blues, you go to heroics in instance blues, you go to Kara in heroic purples/blues, you go to Gruul&Maggi in Kara purples, you go to SSC/TK in T4, you go to BT/Hyjal in T5.
If you have gear from a boss, you are overgeared for him. Why do you keep killing him? You are already have enough gear to move to the next instance. If you don't plan to move to T6, why are you farming your last missing T5?
I see two and only two reasons why a player stop progressing and get stuck in farm instances:
1: lack of skill. If you can't dodge the huge arcane ball of Void Reaver, you can buy 150 arcane res for about 1000G. If you can't interrupt the heal of Julienne, you can still outDPS it in T5. No need to CC if a T5 pala tank holds the whole pull. Outgearing not only helps in skill issues but make skill completely unnecessary. The last HC run of my restodruid main was HC Shadow lab. I did not even bother to run out of Sonic booms, I easily outhealed them. But what is the point? I did not feel that I archived something, I was actually bored. So question No1: are you skilled enough? Can you avoid area damage, can you interrupt heals, can you CC adds without serious DPS drop? If not, then practice. More gear won't healp! Go PvP, watch videos or read blogs!
2: and this is a nastier issue. If you are not already in SWP and you do your theorycrafting homework, practice your skills, have macros and stuff, completed your gear with crafted, badge or PvP items, you find that you outDPS/heal the rest of your team. You are often assigned to the hardest job of the encounter, and you often find yourself doing someone else's job too when he fails. If these are the symptoms than you have outgrown your team. They are pulling you back. It's a hard issue. You may leveled with some since lvl20. You were together when Prince first went down. You helped each other, some of them became your friend, you may even met them IRL. But you are ready for Illidan and they are NOT. There is no good choice here. You can stick with them, practically boost them through instances again and again until you find your GAME time became a dead-end menial job without payment. Or you can leave them and join a more advanced guild. There is no way to make it nicely. No matter what you tell them when you leave they know that you mean: "Sorry, you are just not good enough for me"
When my main had 2000+heal with enough mana regen to never drink a single potion in a bossfight, being always in top 2 on the meters I had the same problem. Since I did not want to raid 5 nights a week 19:00-24:00 I did not have the option to move one guild up. And than I made a VERY stupid thing: I tried to improve THEM. I told them tactics, posted theorycraft on the forum, whispered damage meter information to those who fell behind. They made no improvement at all, but started hating me. No matter what I said, they just heard "you are not good enough". Improvement can only come from inside.
I practically retired my main and started my little arcane mage. The game is challenge (=fun) again. In the expanson my and my GF are planning to be freelancers. Won't join guild, we just face the forces of Arthas with PuG-s. That will be the times!
Seems like someone is experiencing the pre-expansion blues. Why bother worrying about your completely decked out gear when they're going to be obsolete in less than half a year? All you can do is really try to improve yourself. Really squeeze every single last dps out of your little gnome.
I have a guildie who is obviously over-geared for our kara runs, but sticks around because he has a bunch of real-life friends there. So he just basically spends the whole time on Dr. Boom with his hunter and practicing shots. He is on top of the dps charts in half-kara/za gear by weaving his shots instead of using macros. Brutal.
Or, you can spec frost and do some arena PvP =P
@previous comment:
by "over-geared" and "half kara/za" I mean half of his gear is kara-level and half is ZA, so essentially he is over-geared for the raid.
@krizzlybear — I don't think that's really pre-expansion blues. Pre-expansion blues is when you have nothing else to work on. Larísa clearly wants to perfect her gear. It's striving to prove that you can be better than what you are now, maximizing your potential.
@Larísa — Perfection is not a bad thing. I am a strict follower of the Hit cap rule for hunters now and will not dare to upgrade unless I have some way of keeping the hit cap. If you feel that heroics are no longer challenging, then I suggest trying your own consideration: PUG'ing. I run most of my heroics PUG so I still get the enjoyment (and frustrations) out of them. It reminds me how much work I've done to be the perfectionist I am.
Me thinks you are still getting a kick out of the "little one", and you are seeing the content.
I know how you feel about the gear, about the lot I guess.
The test for me is how long I last on an alt... My level 19 warlock twink... isn't 19 yet, my bank alt paladin is still only level 10, my shadow priest (lol - already talented - pre-talents) alt is still only level 3.
But my Mage is.. well worth spending time & MONEY on...
Thank you all of you intelligent, wellspoken commenters, I think you're pretty right, all of you...
Gnome, you're right on the spot when you think I'm not just waiting for the expansion. I don't give a damned if my gear will be outdated or not. I want to see more content!
And I guess that's why your comment, ghostboci, is a bit painful to read, since you're probably quite right.
The question is: am I scilled enough to fill the gear I have, to wear it at the right level? I don't know.
Frankly I do suck a bit at PvP and in very movable fights, but on the other hand I fight constantly to improve, going to my WoW gym, and I do improve. I considered gearing up arcane resist gear for VR, but now I've learned the drill and have no problems surviving anyway, and actually I can keep dps:ing and doing damage, not just saving my ass, which was my first goal.
I need challenges. And probably other challanges then just polishing my car another time.
This post wasn't about that, but you're looking right through me ghostboci...
Well. I guess I'll be back about it when this has sunk in a bit.
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