WoW Brilliant Idea #274 - Gold Sink Account Stashes for Your Alts

I want my own Guild Vault or Stash. I want a central bank, storage, etc. that only my alts on my realm have access to. The convenience of not having to look through my altoholic tabs/pop ups and see which toon has what materials then log in and out and mail various stuff to the one character who needs those items would be a major quality of life improvement in the game for me. I even briefly had my own guild just for my 10 alts on my main realm for this vary reason and it was grand. No more hopping from alt to alt to get stuff. No more struggling with what alt should hold on to my herbs, one of my 3 alchemists or one of  2 my herbalist? I traded in the perks of my recently broken up lvl 25 guild for the ease of supporting and supplying my alts with the stuff they needed. Ultimately being in this self imposed isolation took it's toll and I brought all my alts to a new guild leaving my 1 non lvl 85 as the tried and true banker alt with it's own guild. But it left me wondering why WoW doesn't have a feature to more easily share items across same account characters?  Diablo 3 has this, why not WoW? It even seems like implementing a private storage would elevate system resources for Blizzard and it's severs. All those log in servers being used every time you have to hop over to an alt for just a minute. It'd reduce the system resources of your own computer by not having to load a new character with all it's add-on's and the world/city graphics of whatever area it's currently in. Instead just a storage or bank, a simple window of stored icons that only loads when you need it. I don't know how the game/system works for this kind of stuff, this is just my layman speculation.

So my suggestion for fixing this while also combating another issue Blizzard seems to be currently concerned with, The Gold Sink Personal Vault Storage! Basically allow any toon on an account to go purchase a guild vault that only characters on that account and realm would have access to. Set it up the same as guild vaults and charge an increasing amount for every tab in it. I'd gladly pay any cost for a feature like this. I'd glady pay 100,000 gold out of my current 550,000 gold just for 1 tab. I personally don't even need much space. Just enough to store elemental mats all professions use while having enough space left over to drop the mats an alt collects in any given day so when I log over to another toon he can pick them up and add them to his personal bank.

Simple and brilliant right?

I Still Miss Wintergrasp

Wintergrasp even with all the QQ'ers QQ'n about imbalance in numbers or buff was always a grand time throughout the duration or Wrath. Take over a workshop, man a canon in the fort or a tower, bulldoze that workshop in that demolisher you just built (until they took that out). Defend/attack, go as ground support for the vehicles... There was a lot of options in how you played WG. We won some and we lost some, but it was always great. Even when the battle wasn't going on it was an actual world pvp zone filled with activity. It was there! On the Map! You could fly to it, you could fly around it, YOU DIDN'T ZONE INTO IT! Many players would stick around scrapping it out for so long after a battle that the next one would start. The rich ore, herb and later fishing resources available made sure even the timid players would be hanging around. I'd often stick around so long farming it up after the fight that the next one would begin. The music in WG between battles was somber, peaceful almost mournful like something you'd expect to hear after a truly grand battle. It really set the tone for this beautiful zone between the bloodshed. The battle itself was fun enough that people always got into it regardless of wanting to run a VoA or farm the elites after their victory. I loved WG from the first time to the last time and all throughout Wrath, regardless of what toon I was on, whether he had any pvp gear at all or not, if I was online and it was going on I was there.

Tol Barad really failed to capture anything that I loved about WG. TB was just a mindless zergfest until the clock ran out. Win or lose you most likely hit your hearth and got the hell out of there unless you stuck around to do the dailys. The actual zone was all but a ghost town 99% of the time outside of the battle. With WG when you won you saved that hour long hearth cd and headed to the fortress for the portal back to Dalaran and flew by or saw your fellow combatants and in most cases hung out for awhile! Players celebrated their victory in WG by shooting the shit. They kicked it on their epic mounts, dueled around with each other, pug'd VoAs, etc... The WG courtyard after a victory was just as populated as Dal or the Org AH. Even if you lost and that last wall was down you'd fly by a crowd of the opposing faction and their elite npc's just to use that portal! It was a little, but significant something. TB was instanced like so many other parts of Cata so it didn't really feel like it was an actual place. The lore sucked and was all but completely unexplained. You don't need grand lore to sustain something. That little journal of Archavon's was all you needed! That was hilarious, and with each patch we met another of his brothers. You weren't flagged upon entering TB so basically it was just another questing zone on pve servers. If you weren't grinding for some vendor item or maximizing your daily quests for guild rep there was really no purpose in going there at all.

TLDR: WG ruled, TB sucks. I will continue to wax nostalgic about WG for years. As for TB I can't really say I'm going to miss something that I never cared about or rarely spent any time doing.

My Top 3 Pandaren Monk names, so far

1. Chuckymonky

2. Funkymonky

3. Tonyshalhoub

Inscription was invented by the Devil

Making Fox Van Allen over at WoW Insider the Devil's Advocate by continually pushing people to the profession. =P

His First Look at Inscription in MoP

I've had at least 1 character with every profession maxed since the end of Wrath and still to this day Inscription is my least favorite and least profitable mostly because it is the most unstable and unreliable market. DMF decks and Mysterious Fortune cards aside your only other gold maker is Glyphs and that's where the problem lies. The glyph market is completely dependent on the hardcore players who camp the AH and constantly refresh their supply of glyphs. Glyph value is completely dependent on nothing more than what those Inscriptionists willing to play the game deem them worth. The selling price of a glyph can flux +/-300% in a matter of days due to no other fact than Mr. Uber Glyph seller guy hasn't been on in 12 hours. Unless you like making the AH your own time consuming mini-game I'd avoid suggesting anyone to pursue it for raking it in.

I think Fox continually pointing out the riches he made (a year and a half ago in the first months of the expansion mind you) is doing a disservice to his readers suggesting Inscription. There will always be windows of opportunity for every profession and in the early days of Cata those DMF decks and trinkets in addition to the new Mysterious Fortune cards were a perfect storm of profitability. Let's break it down. You had tons of players leveling from 80-85. This means more herbalist herbing than at any other time during the rest of the expansion. Many of those herbalists didn't have alch or inscript and they all ended up selling them on the AH competing with each other and keeping the herb buying costs stable. Meanwhile you have this huge brand new customer base of freshly 85 who want those epics, especially considering how good the trinkets this time around were. My lock was using that Volcano trink until Dragon Soul.

Now I agree that striking while the iron is hot will net you some decent gold and in the first few months of the expansion if you have all your auction ducks in a row you can turn out a serious profit. I sold probably about a dozen decks and trinkets for 20k+ in the first couple months of Cata. I bought many herbs to help produce them even though I already had 2 herbalists. But by the time Firelands had hit I found my DMF deck/trinket business quickly drying up and barely netting a profit good enough to continue pursuing it. Mysterious Fortune cards added greatly to this early expansion money making. I think putting a lottery scratcher in a video game was a boon for income and the gold fever of the player base made sure that those cards would always sell. But after a few months and the novelty of those cards wore off I found them making roughly the same profit for me as my Blacksmiths belt buckles or my Jewelcrafters purple or orange gems. Those cards still sell today and for a decent profit compared to the mats required for making them, but it's barely a steady income, Nobody is getting rich off them anymore than any other profession crafted item. After the early expansion mania wore off and the player base dwindled and those remaining players were 'geared' what have inscriptionists been left with for the last year or more? Glyphs. That utterly maddening, time and soul sucking market that I don't even try to get in on anymore. I've read several guides and tips on how to 'break into' or 'beat' the glyph game, but in my experience unless you're willing to dedicate a serious amount of time to babysitting the AH you're not going to get rich off of glyphs. I'd rather be doing about anything else in the game than that.

The Forsaken in the Age of Transmog

I touched on this awhile back in a post, but apparently it's still on my mind.

I love my Undead, I have 4 of them including my main. I find the Forsaken lore and quest lines to be underlined with a tragic sadness. Former humans, raised up and enslaved through unholy and demonic powers to fight against their will for the very forces that killed and ripped their humanity from them in the first place. Finally after breaking free and trying to notch their own place in this world they are ultimately despised and hated by everyone, even their own Horde, not that they care about them too much either. Sylvannas has her own agenda, but I believe most of the Forsaken are rather just kinda "eh, whatever" about their afterlife. They're resilient, they press on and just keep "living".

But, in the age of transmog I feel penalized for playing this race. Their lack of elbows and knees really destroys the otherwise great looking armor sets available all throughout each expansion of WoW. I don't care for Human males either though. Their hips being so big and their overall straight and shapeless forms just leave a lot of gear looking unimpressive on them.

That being said, there's some sets that just look utterly badass on an Undead. I'm thinking specifically my locks T8 Deathbringer Garb and T10 Dark Coven's Regalia. Both seem tailor made for an Undead. Nobody wears those sets better than a Forsaken. Even our first sighting of the Deathbringer Garb a year before it was available in game for players was Grand Apothecary Putress at the Battle for Wrathgate.

But ya, with all the talk about updated character models I'd be easily placated if they'd simply add some knees and elbows to my Forsaken. They can leave the spine that pokes out, I don't mind that nearly as much.

First Aid - Should you even bother?

First Aid could use some updating, not to mention just about all professions, primary and secondary, but I'll focus just on First Aid for this post. WoW Insider's The Queue touched on this today and several of it's readers comments suggested improvements and advancements that could help make this secondary profession a little more interesting and capable. Instead of following suite and wildly speculating about how changes could improve things I'm just going to look at what First Aid is, here and now and break down whether or not it's even worth leveling up. Yes, there's a bunch of achievements you can rank up through the profession, one of which (Ultimate Triage) can actually be kind of fun to try to get and better yet is awesome when you didn't even realize it. But for actual function in game it really only reigns supreme in one area, PvP.

In Combat
The great benefit First Aid has is that bandages can be used in combat so that mostly throws it into the PvP category which also touches on it's unique feature that they can be used on other players regardless if they have the profession or not. Though in reality unless you have some amazing on the fly communication going on that other player will likely move the second you start using this 8-second cast-time based bandage hence interrupting it's effect. But for self heals during PvP this is where First Aid really shines, Those bandages can be a literal life saver when used after a perfectly timed CC. In addition, unlike a health potion which can only be used once after combat has started, you'll be able to bandage again after it's 1 minute cooldown is up regardless of dropping combat or not.  But it's not the only in combat self heal ability, there's actually a whole race our there with a bandage effect talent build right in.

Forsaken Racial
If you're Forsaken/Undead your Cannibalize can also be used while fighting and gives the benefit of regenerating mana as well, provided there's a fresh corpse around, which is pretty common in battlegrounds, but only rarely reliable or available in arenas. But out and about in the world questing or running dungeons you won't have to go too far to find, kill then eat a humanoid or undead npc. Beasts, demons, dragonkin can not be Cannibalized. So here's this a whole race on Azeroth who already have and even more power effect built into their character from level 1. No material gathering, no leveling, nada. Just eat away. No, I didn't forget Gift of the Naaru. But a 20% heal with a minute longer cooldown doesn't even come close to working as a replacement for a bandage. But you play Alliance or you play Horde but you'd never even consider rolling an Undead? Well luckily you have a 4 in 10 shot of playing something way more ubiquitous than a Forsaken.

Healing Classes
If you play any healing class in any spec then like me you probably didn't bother leveling First Aid on them at all and never thought about it again. Many years ago I started leveling First Aid on my first alt, an Enhance Shaman. By level 20-something I realized that I still had a stack of Linen Bandages that I've never used so I stopped wasting my cloth to continue leveling it.  He's still sitting at 55/150 First Aid.

Outside of Combat and Class Abilities
Outside of combat there's just so many more readily available options beside bandages. There's food! Cheap, plentiful, utterly common food. You don't even have to make an effort to get it seeing as most humanoid mobs will drop some after you kill them.  Warlocks have Soul Harvest which when used after a Soul Burned Health Stone can take you from 10% health to full in half the time of eating. Precede that with a couple Life Taps and your down time is pretty much nil. Soul Burn is kind of a personal gripe with me since I'm a Forsaken warlock. They basically rolled one of my racial's into my class so eh no big whoop. Though on my priest Cannibalize is still awesome for 5 mans when I just eat on the go and never have to bother a mage for water, speaking of which... Mages have glyphed health regeneration through Evocation, +40%! Actually, every class has some sort of health regeneration talent or ability. Most aren't as available, reliable or convenient as just eating, but Recuperation, Spirit Mend, Enrage Regeneration, Blood Tap/Lichborne+Death Coil, etc... You get the idea.

So outside of PvP is there really a reason to waste all that cloth and time on First Aid? Not for this player. Embersilk, even as this point of the expansion is still too valuable for me to squander on bandages that'll go unused. Even my main who is nearing 13,000 achievement points isn't even getting any for his Preparing for Disaster. He'll get it eventually, but I'll wait for MoP when those bandages will once again grant skill up points.

Tanks are dumb

Response to: Hero Moments: What it means to be a tank

I've had my fair share of "last man standing" as a tank (I mean we're the tank that's kinda our job and what what we're built for!), but none of them compare to the times I've seen the dps and heals use a clever and perfectly executed combination of survival skills to keep the fight going long after the tank (or tanks) have hit the floor and that boss was still up at 5% hp or more.  A mage who knows to kite with Blink then Iceblock passing off threat to the rogue who takes it to the face the whole duration of his Evasion then Vanishing. The lock who wisely hits his Demonic Portal to kite as long as he can before using Soulshatter and bouncing that threat to the hunter who taunts with his pet and feigns death. Perhaps dps warrior/dk/druid had the foresight to stance/presence/bear swap and takes over aggro and soaks the rest as long as they can while the healers are busting out every last sliver of that blue bar to keep alive anyone they can until that boss finally joins the tanks dead on the floor. That's pretty awesome! Ya, tanks being the last ones alive in an encounter is slightly less impressive to the things I've seen dps and healers pull off tier after tier. I'm thinking back to our rogue evasion tanking LK in 25s for his last 5mill hp after our tank died in the throne room. That was before transition when LK "wipes" the raid.

Tanks should be careful not to break their arms patting themselves on the back. The role has been largely automated. Here's your threat, it's just a given. Here's your CD's, some are longer than others, but often you don't even have to use em all. Most of the work of being a tank is done before you even enter a raid by setting up your gear properly. The rest is just swap when you get this debuff, swap back when it's over. Hit this CD when this attack happens, which is conveniently about as often as it takes your CD to come up again. That's about it. My favorite part of being a tank is how mind-numbingly simple it is and the satchels you get from randoms. Seriously, the only roll I can perform while paying more attention to the TV than the game. I mean I can half ass it on my dps but I don't like being shown up on the meters so I pay attention. You don't really have any competition as a tank. It's mostly pass/fail. Either you died or the boss died, everything else is kinda irrelevant. And that suits me just fine. This fear of being a tank is highly unfounded at this point of the game. You want an easy role, quick gear and all that glory? Roll a tank (especially a blood dk)! You won't regret it, but you'll probably get bored very quickly if you don't have a TV in the same room as your computer.

Faction Bias: part 1

What started off as a reply comment over at WoW Insider has once again turned into it's own post.

In response to My own private faction bias.

In this first part I address the issue of going from Horde to Alliance or Alliance to Horde by sharing my experience in doing so.

I can relate to what Matthew is going through here, though my feelings in regard to lore and game play restrictions due to faction segregation don't run so deep. After playing my main for over 3 years I moved him from Horde on one realm to Alliance on another right about the time Firelands came out. My previous guild of 1.5 years decided to call it quits after the disappoint that was Cata and general lack of interest and hardcore progression during Tier 11. I was optimistic about this though, looking at it as an opportunity. I thought a whole big change would be fun and refreshing So I went from a Forsaken lock on one realm to a Worgen lock on another realm. Ultimately it turned out to be a bad decision for me, but the reason why totally surprised me.

I was enjoying playing with my new Alliance guild and tackling a higher level of progression raiding than I previously did, but the whole time something was off. Outside of raiding on my now "traitor" main I rarely logged into him. I was always back on my original realm playing my Horde alts that I left behind. A couple of them even found their way into new guilds main raid groups. As the patch went on it became more and more apparent to me that by faction transferring I pretty much mutilated my main into this character I no longer recognized, no longer felt anything for. Turns out that scrawny little Undead was more to me than a lean, mean dot throwing machine. I completely stripped him of his (our?) history and identity and in the end I didn't like it. So very shortly after Dragon Soul launched I decided to return him to the fold of my Horde alt army back on my ever shrinking original realm. Yes, I actually paid once again for 2 premium services to return him right back to where he started. *Shakes fist at Blizzard* (You should get 1 free transfer a year per paid account, but that's another post entirely)

The effect of this homecoming was immediately apparent. My lock felt like my lock once again. He had his Orc shaman brother, his Forsaken sister priest and all the others under the same guild banner again and just a mailbox away from anything they needed. Pug's are fewer are further apart on this old realm, most of my alts don't even get into a BH during any given week unless I'm the one putting them together. Our top ranked raiding guild can't hold a candle to the #5 raiding guild on the Alliance server I left behind. There are no Rated BGs groups and only one 25 man raiding guild left, but it's home and having my main back there was the best decision I ever made. It was a lesson for sure, I just wish I didn't have to pay a combined total of $110 to learn it.

Part 2 coming soon: It's Orcs & Humans, not Orcs VS. Humans! (Why can't we all get along and why do I have to be stuck in this faction always against that faction? I want to defect to the Argent Crusade or run off and join the Darkmoon Faire!)

I might have to shorten that subhead.