Varian "W" Wrynn

***Disclaimer: This is a political piece, and links things in Azeroth with events that I think Blizzard, in their quest for commentary and humor, just happened to relate to real world happenings. Please do not read if you expect anything else from this liberal.***

Once again Allison posted a well thought out masterpiece. It was in response to a piece that applauded Varian for his actions. It was a piece that I had little perspective respect for because, though I only play Alliance, I never liked or played a human, and I never thought Varian was a great choice as the anti-Thrall.

I will be quoting her, and just want to reiterate that she is like the warm Ironforge air that enters your lungs at the gates as you retreat from the bitter cold in Dun Morogh.

“With full knowledge of the life of a king and the life of a gladiator, with the dangers and responsibilities inherent to both, Varian chose to return to kingship. He chose to return to a life where his first priority at all times is the well-being and political interests of the Stormwind kingdom.”

Like W, when faced with the choice of life as a gladiator (or business man with little aptitude) or that of president (which mama would do her best to insure, both out of hatred for the Clintons who made her beloved husband a one term wonder, and her desire to win at all cost), he chose president. Almost laughable now to think that Blizzard has given us a king who has no business representing the masses when we did it 8 years ago and then decided to re-crown him 4 years later. Who can blame Varian or W for the choice they made? If provided the same opportunity, I am sure we all would have made a similar decision. The problem with Varian, like W, is that he has no business representing the ideas of the Alliance. Allison made some excellent points on why, and the most important is that we do not even know if he actually represents the views his people. Varian was crowned with little regard to the progress the humans had made in his absence. He is busy representing them with idea and values that are dated at best, and dangerous and vile at worst.

Anyone else think that during the zombie world event, he might have spent a little extra time reading to the orphans in Stormwind instead of mobilizing his forces? In the face of the greatest evil known to the humans, and one of their own abandoning the light for the power of Frostmourne, why would he not work to bridge broken alliances and forge new ones? Why in a time when given the opportunity to forever change the face of Azeroth, he instead chooses to throw sand at people in the sandbox of diplomacy? His diplomacy is hardly a characteristic that defines one of the human racials.

As terror threatens his people’s very existence, he has chosen not to focus his energy on the enemy and march to the gates of Icecrown, but instead to fight both Arthas and the enemies of his father. Instead of acknowledging that old enemies can be forgiven for past transgressions, he chooses to keep them as enemies and battle the new ones. Did a two front war work for Napoleon? Hitler? W?

I love the Dwarves and, like Allison, believe Bronzebeard could effectively represent the Alliance , but unlike her I had hoped that another leader would provide the solution to the ongoing problem, but that is an issue for tomorrow.

Until then…

-Rhab

Even trees need a hug!

Over on the forums, GC wants to know if ToL is fun.

Allison Roberts over and wow.com had a few interesting points. I’d also like to say that both her and Amanda Dean are a refreshing perspective in the World of Warcraft universe (something typically seen as a boys club), and always worth reading, no matter the topic or if you agree with them.

Now to answer the question, is ToL is not fun? Well yes and no…It’s still a great idea, I love being a tree hugging hippie healer. Mochachino and I joke that druids are transcendental liberal new age whacko healers and the paladins are the right wing reactionary Jesus walks with me healers. They are both effective, but paladin and druid healers just see the world differently, and they should. The most interesting and fun thing about druid healing is being proactive and not reactive. Especially now, its about knowing when Lifebloom with explode and not wasting a RG at the same time. Its about watching Loken’s nova cast and timing your WG around it so the group can eat all that damage. Every other healer has to heal after the fact, but druids heal before the damage comes because they can anticipate it coming. Disc has taken a turn to preventing damage, but according to Matticus is still highly misunderstood.

I love healing in tree form, I love that I get a nice boost to my healing, but that’s easily brought by a prot pally with improved devotion. What I love about healing in tree form is the form. I know that people can’t see my cool shoulders or my helmet, and I know that sadly the tree punchers in nexus are so much sexier than me with that silver bark, but unlike any other healer in the game, I wear my form like a badge of honor. There’s no inspecting me like there is a shaman or paladin with a shield to see if I heal. You know when I shift that I’m about to save your ass from anything stupid you might attempt. Stand in the flame walls with Sarth, and it’s my ass you will be kissing when you don’t die. The form idea is sexy, and it’s also a defining druid mechanic. I love the uniqueness of tree healing so much that even though I’m dual specced now, I always hang around town in my resto spec and tree form. It’s nice that I can actually walk around at a decent pace since the pre-Lich patch launched as well.

Now what sucks you ask? Please understand that I think these things make ToL less fun to play, but I still love tree healing, and I give them up every time I step up to heal not because I like to, but because druid healing is different and dynamic.

Offense is spelled HOT. My best opportunity to contribute any damage to the encounter is ZERO unless I pop out of tree, cast a spell, then pop back into tree, and start healing again. That sucks! How is it that a master of nature can heal, but can’t use those same energies to pop a wrath in someone’s ass? The same goes for boomkin. How is it that I am so in touch with nature, I am able to summon treants to assist me, but unable to use that same school of magic to drop a heal on someone just because I’m a giant chicken.

The trees are designed to improve your offense or defense, if you heal as a balance spec, you already are losing mana efficiency, just like any other healing class. The biggest and easiest change is to allow us to use a spell that is not intended for the form. We are punished for doing so with regard to cast time, or mana, and we shouldn’t be doubly punished by popping out of form as well. Is the 5% crit in chicken really going to bring game balance to its knees if the boomkin throws out a RG in a crunch?

The other thing about ToL aura is it’s boring. Why does leader of the pack heal all those melee and hunters when they crit, but there’s no love for the casters? Improved moonkin increases haste, and leader of the pack offers a heal for melee crits. Why is ToL just some improved healing? Please don’t misunderstand, improved healing is nice, but it’s not cool! Hell, if you have a prot pally with improved devotion, you have no reason to even stay in ToL now, and that SUCKS! Give the aura some love! I know this is inconsistent with most of the buff stacking that seems to be the new master plan for Blizzard, but it would be nice if ToL didn’t share a buff with a paladin talent in tier 4 when the ToL is in tier 9.

Ultimately, there are 2 easy things to do for ToL form. First, let trees use their balance spells. Using balance spells comes with a high cost in mana and time not spent healing. It’s something that Blizzard thinks is ok for all the other healers, so let us cast a moonfire if we have the spare time. Second, give ToL aura some love. I don’t really have any ideas about what exactly can be done to make it more fun or desirable, but I'm there are some ideas out there that make sense if they were implemented.

-Rhab

The Uncontrollable Desire to Drive My Mining Pick Through My Skull

I wanted to level professions for my DK Clintonista and after deciding that I was indeed wanting to tank after reading some skeletonjack on the competiveness of blood tanking, I decided, of the gathering skills, the self heal from weed picking and the stamina boost from mining would be the most logical.

I took the professions, and had zero problems getting to 300 in herbalism. I had given up on mining and decided to come back and do it later. After spending some time in Hellfire and passing up some fel iron veins, I decided that I better level mining before I really regretted it.

I grabbed my trusty Mining Pick and set out on what I thought would be a few hours of riding around on my deathcharger.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! It turned into a weekend+1 project. Even with gatherer, the amount of time it takes to round up all the veins needed to level is insane. The mithril stretch probably had to be the most painful. I rode around the rim of Tanaris what felt like a 100 times. When I finally got to learn smelt trusilver, I bought the trusilver I needed to free skillups and then went back into the field. The one perk is that the trusilver I smelted sold for 3x what I paid for the ore. The bitchiness that overwhelmed me when I bought the ore quickly dissipated when I saw that a buyer had been found for my trusilver bars. I sold 25 bars in stacks of 5 for 50G a stack!

When I finally made it to thorium, I headed to Silithus and rode around grabbing small thorium veins until I could mine the rich veins and then ventured into the tunnels that lie underneath the vast wasteland.

At around midnight Sunday and level 293 mining, I was cruising on my deathcharger, and no I don’t mean the car that helped kill what was left of Chrysler over the last few years, and my mouse stopped working. I thought the battery might be dead; it wasn’t. I though maybe the receiver had popped out of the USB drive; it hadn’t. I thought maybe the mouse had died; it did.

I had decided to go to bed when I hit 300 and now my mouse wouldn’t allow that. I would have ran to wally world and picked up a new mouse if I had my car, but the better half had taken the car to work, so I couldn’t even do that. I was alone in the apartment and pissed as hell. The weekend had seemed tedious and boring since I spent most of it mining and now I couldn’t even reach my goal before I went to bed.

I swear if I had had a real mining pick at that point in the evening, it probably would have gone through a few walls, good thing all I had was a shitty mouse that had no purpose because at least throwing it wouldn’t really hurt much of anything, except maybe the cat (which by the way it never hit).

-Rhab

Decus Praesidium Fallout

Late in the Burning Crusade, I was at the point where WoW was no longer fun for me. Nordrassil was my first server, and it seemed infested with juvenile pricks and morons. I google’d for a guild looking website and came across LookingforGuild.net. It was a great site, and I understand it has recently been updated. I created a toon, DORF girl of course, and /who’d for Decus. I got lucky and just happened to pick Corr, the guild leader, even though the site had a few members as contacts. He and I talked for a few. The first lesson of Decus that I learned is that they like to feel you out as much as I wanted to do to them. They are a guild with more mature members and some of them have extensive experience in classic WoW and even in games prior.

I brought over Rhabella to Draenor from Nordrassil, and was immediately welcomed. They had always allianced with a couple other guilds for 25 man runs, and had a solid core for 10 mans. WoW had become fun again. They ran Mech with me everyday until I got The Suneater. I am sure they were feeling out whether I was some dumb ass or someone that can actually tank, but they helped me get the most coveted tanking drop that was available to me after the patch that forever changed a prot paladins gearing priorities. I died a little inside when my account got hacked and they sold my Sun Eater, because of what it meant for me. Oddly, I didn’t get it back in the restoration and since I had no real purpose for it, I didn’t press a GM. Aside from the guild, I found that Draenor was unbelievably better for PuG’ing, and with other toons helping you get crafted items if they had recipes you needed. It’s a server full of gracious people who often bring extra elixirs or pots even to 5 man pugs and offer them to the group. Fish feasts are laid down for no reason, and people pass on shards at the end of a run if they got an upgrade. Draenor served as proof that WoW had players that played the game the way it was supposed to be played and reinforced my decision to change servers.

WotLK came out and the worst thing that can happen to a guild happened, some of us got hit with real life. Our core was made up of a couple couples that played wow together, and from what I have been able to pick up, since I was just learning everyone around the time it happened, is one of the couples had a baby, and as Phaelia has taught us, the time required with a newborn in the house is just too much to try and obligate yourself to a game. The other couple changed moved and changed jobs and had little playtime available as they are pouring their free time into situating their new life. I think the part that sucks the most is there was no drama, there was no bickering because we are a group of adults who understand that life mechanics often dictate game time. We wished them all well, and told them we would be here if they ever found the time to make it back.

As we all leveled through Lich, we all knew the impending outcome. We had lost the most vital positions in our raid setup. Tanks and healers, especially tanks and healers with a good relationship aren’t just something you can recruit on a whim, so we were all hitting 80 and starting to PuG Naxx as we all tried to sort out solutions. The solution for some of us became to accept invites from guilds we were running Naxx with. We lost some of our more dedicated member because they wanted to raid regularly. It’s not something anyone took personal, as again, there is a level of maturity in our guild that is greatly underappreciated. When we did attempt raids, we found we were having to PuG some DPS, and that was with me healing on the druid. One of our tanks didn’t have quite the experience we needed and things got out of hand. There is nothing quite so frustrating as running a raid and healing knowing you could have saved the last wipe had you been tanking and knowing there is jack shit you can do about it because you are needed to heal as well. Believe me when I say this…I’m not the best player in the world, or even close, but I take my responsibilities seriously and its one reason I am an internet WoW junkie. There is never enough information for me. It’s not just WoW, it’s part of my personality, and sometimes it can be a blessing of kings and other times it can be a curse of doom that I know will bring disaster when it finally reaches duration.

The problem now is that we are a good group, but keep losing more and more members because we can’t fill the raid. Losing a member, despite how amicably they leave, means you have yet another spot to fill. The problem snowballs from there. We don’t actively recruit, which I know many will say is a problem, but recruiting means running the risk of players that may or may not subscribe to the philosophy. On the flip side, both Rhabella and Huath are getting invites from guilds that I do raid with, but I just can’t abandon a good group. I have no idea how to balance this out other than to hang out and hope things get better. I’ve never been romanticized by epic lootz, and always thought the social aspect of the game was far more important.

Every day we sit in limbo is one more day it takes for me to boost my stats, and another day of heroics for badge gear that has little use to me. I wish I knew a more efficient way to help build the guilds membership.

-Rhab

The Hybrid Tax

After reading Rossi’s Care and Feeding today, I ran across a comment by Ample Vigour that made reference to the Hybrid Tax.

I have never seen the idea that pure classes should do better DPS than hybrids referred to as the Hybrid tax, but it’s nothing short of brilliant.

The reason Blizzard should recognize it as a tax is because it allows them to mathematically justify reducing a class or even a spec by assigning a percentage tax on the utility. I have never liked the idea of a druid doing as much DPS as a lock or a paladin doing as much DPS as a rogue. Having both an 80 prot pally and an 80 resto druid that only recently took advantage of dual specs, I have to admit that I am a little old school in the idea that if you can tank or heal, you should tank or heal if there is a need. All of the Hybrid jack asses in LGF that say they are only DPS makes me want to throw up. I have recently rediscovered the joy of topping DPS meters with my leveling lock, but I also understand the importance of a healer hybrid as I am also leveling my resto/elemental shaman, both of whom are in the lvl 75 range.

Now, I know GC has made several posts about pure dps classes and how they should be slightly higher than a hybrid, but the real number has never really been decided upon. My other issue in the DPS tax is that no one seems to think that there should be a tax for utility. I know that some utility has always been available to most classes, but the one that comes to mind currently is replenishment. Why is there no tax for replenishment? Shouldn’t destro locks and survivalist hunters be punished with the hybrid tax in a way that is similar but not exactly like other hybrids. Now that replenishment is a required raid buff, shouldn’t there be a price to pay for your raid if they do have it since there is a price to pay if they don’t? From what I have been able to find, thanks to some help over at The Hunting Lodge that survivalist DPS is the best spec for raiding hunters. With the required buff to replenishment and the overall best performance in DPS all hunters HAVE to be survivalist if they want to best contribute to their raid. Shouldn’t the hybrid tax apply to those hunters since the other hunters aren’t bringing that kind of required raid buff?

GC has done a great job in admitting that there is fact a philosophy that hybrids should be taxed, so why in the world is it some phantom tax where only the developers are allowed to know the percentage it is supposed to carry. I say if there is an open tax, then all talents that boost utility can then do so at the cost of DPS. I am not saying it should happen, but if Blizzard is adamant about balancing classes, then allowing us a little closer look behind the curtain could prove to be advantageous to them, even if GC is convinced that the developers have to play their cards close to their chest.

-Rhab

Some More Pets, Even More Mounts, and the Return of Vanilla WoW

I love vanity pets, I love them so much that I’ll drop gold on worthless floating skulls and mana wyrms, and though Blizzard has done a great job of providing more and more unique vanity pets, I am always disappointed that they are often purchased.

Though the Consortium sells the mana wyrm, why didn’t they offer it at the end of a long quest chain? I’m not saying this because I want the wyrm for free, but because it allows a story to unfold that could possibly include the idea of vanity pets from notable NPC’s or factions. Though my lock, my original toon, has the Defender of the Timbermaw it became little more than a vanity item in TBC. Hell I even wear it in towns because people are always inspecting and asking where in the world I got it. It’s a great trinket, but when you are looking at gear that becomes easily outdated like it, wouldn’t it be better to include a vanity item that says, “hey, look how much time I put into something useless?” Achievements lead to titles, and rewards, why can’t long lore driven quest chains? Something like the Hand of A’dal possibly?

Old world factions deserve more than an achievement. I have said countless times that I wish my little gnome could have the title “of the Timbermaw” for his countless months spent farming the rep. Sure the Diplomat is a great title, but I don’t have any kind of connection to the other factions involved. I do wish that Blizzard had added the The Kalu'ak to the title achievement and title. They like, the other 3 factions involved are fighting the evils of the world as it invades their homeland. The Kalu’ak just seem to compliment the other factions with regard to overall story and feel in each of their respective versions of the game.

Along with old world titles, how about some respect for those factions? The Timbermaw could offer a Vanity pet when you do reach exalted, the Thorium Brotherhood could have some dark iron mount for horde or alliance, and the for those people who are crazy enough, why do none of the goblin factions, or when you reach exalted with all 4 offer you some sort of reward? How about a mechanical zeppelin pet?

I know that I have been advocating more pets, but what I would really like are more mounts. I’m not talking skins of mounts, because I think that has gotten out of control. The Argent Tournament is adding even more skins to the same old mounts. Once you have seen one mechanostrider, haven’t you seen them all? Where are the Clefthoofs, the Sporebats, the Shoveltusks, the boars, the rhinos, and the pterodactyl mounts? Mammoths, drakes, proto or otherwise, and bears are cool, but where are mounts that don’t look like rehashed skins of other mounts? Blizzard did a great job with ways to obtain mounts in Northrend, and I wish they would take it a step further and other unique ways to do so. Rep grinds and random hatchlings keep people interested, as do rare spawn killing with super cool lootz, so why not drive lore chains with vanity items that last long after the gear rewards?

There has been talk over at wowinsider about ending vanilla wow, and I would love to see just the opposite. I know some of this has been covered a million times, but dungeons need updated, streamlined, lore driven, and revisited. I’m sure that Blizzard spends countless hours on loot tables alone, and I would guess that remains the biggest issue with vanilla dungeons, but why not just have them scale? I realize we are told encounters don’t just scale because the mechanics of the fight are balanced around classes having certain abilities, but would BoA items be that bad even if they refuse to allow heroic old world dungeons?

I still don’t buy all the crap about scaling anyway. Blizzard proved places can be tuned up and trashed down with the new Naxx. They have taken lots of grief because Naxx was a redo of an old place, and there are many critics that will say that Blizzard was able to rush WotLK because instead of offering an entry level raid, they just retuned an old one. Why not get that retuning department in gear and let them hit up ZF, Mauradon, and Dire Maul?

-Rhab

Huntard of the Day

Last night I hopped on the hunter to level a bit and see what I could do. I joined LFG for UK, Nex, and AN, and got a whisper for Nexus.

I immediately accepted the invite because I was dying to get the Drakonid Arm Blade since I already had the other half of the pair from UK. We make it all the way to Ormorok and I know that if the weapon drops that I get to have it since there isn’t another player in the group that can even equip it. We down the boss, and guess what? That’s right bitches, it dropped! I am in a pug, and want everyone to know that I am needing it, so I tell the party that I am going to need it and immediately get a couple “grats man” and then guess what the fuck I did? I hit the pass button instead of the need one. I was so pissed. I had gotten lucky and gotten a drop I wanted out of a place that is notorious for punishing me. The leather caster belt took me 9 times to get when leveling the druid, and now not only did I get the drop, but I had no other people rolling against me for it. I nominated my self for Huntard of the Day in guild chat and the motion was immediately seconded, and I was crowned!

-Rhab

The Tragic Choice of the Argent Crusade

Why in the hell did the Argent Crusade decide to have goblins build their coliseum?

Dwarves are masterful stonemasons and given that paladins are a playable race by the dwarves, wouldn’t it have made sense to see some of the dwarven paladins use both their abilities with stone and that of the light to create building that would be a true tribute to the downing of the Lich King?

Instead we get goblins building the place, and I die a little inside every time I blow up some rocks or kill a tree to serve their entrepreneurial endeavor. I don’t know Blizzard’s exact plans for the coliseum, but shouldn’t it be part military base, part entertainment, and part cathedral?

What greater “fuck you Arthas” is there than a monument to the light he abandon in his quest for power at his very feet? And who better to build it than all those dwarves with their “light” given ability to work with stone?

-Rhab

The Genius of the Big Bear Butt

So BBB made a post for new tanks and I think it’s great advice for those just starting out. I think he missed a few points, and I will take the opportunity to hit on them fairly quickly.

1. Tanking is about confidence. Timid tanks are the worst. Your group can smell fear on you as if they were a group of rabid dogs on a mailman. This is not to imply that tanking is about arrogance, but confidence is a vital tool. The same can be said for all the roles, but none require quite the gusto that a tank does. You are the first to go into battle. You need to be confident that you have the stats and gear to withstand any encounter you are about to tackle. You should know your abilities and if you feel you need a CC, ask for one. This isn’t an area where people tend to argue or contribute advice. They expect the tank to know how many mobs he can take pounding him to a pulp. The general rule here is if you don’t know if you can take the hits from mob 4 or 5 ask for a cc because it is always better safe than sorry. Asking for CC, though there is little of that anymore doesn’t mean you lack confidence, it means you aren’t a giant dumb ass who is going to risk frying the healers keyboard and mouse.

2. To expound on BBB’s knowledge is power, you should do your very best to understand the classes you are running with. I have an alt of every class except a warrior. This by no means makes me an expert on every class, but it helps to understand where certain classes excel. If you are not an alta-holic like myself, the best advice I can give is to observe. Watch the other classes and see how they respond when shit hits the fan. Be mindful of a mage that drops a poly on a mob that’s attacking the healer that you can’t pick up, compliment him and ask mages in the future if they don’t mind doing that if you happen to be on a run where you have aggro monkeys. Everyone will appreciate your limited knowledge of their class and no one ever gets upset when you ask them to do something that makes them feel like they are contributing. Helping the druid healer you are with in UP by asking the ret pally to cleanse disease or the elemental shaman to drop a cleansing totem because the druid can’t lets everyone know that you understand the classes you have with you and that you can be trusted. Along these lines, if you don’t know, ask. If you are in AN, ask who’s got the poison cleansing. If the healer can handle the poison let them handle it. If they can’t don’t be afraid to ask a DPS to compromise some of their dps to make the encounter easier for the whole group. Great hybrids who contribute in situations like this is one of the primary reasons damage meters can be overrated.

3. Remember that healers (especially ones with whom you have rapport) are a tanks best friend. You should understand your healers. As a pally, I have zero problems with snap threat, so druids are my personal favorite in 5 mans. You should be able to “feel” the heals that are coming into you. Learning to feel those heals teaches you when to use your cool downs. Again, as a paladin, you have to learn to feel the heals on the raid as well. Does it look like the healer is struggling to keep a dps who can’t avoid splash damage? Use your Hand of Protection on that dps and buy the healer some time. Always, always, always compliment good healers at the end of a good run. Good healers are priceless and often underappreciated.

4. Always work on mastering the art of tank & type. If you are not on vent, you maybe required to type messages to the group while things are going to hell. This is not always easy to maintain all of your duties and type messages to the raid. One handed typists have an advantage here, and there’s no need for anyone to try and pretend like you have never done that /wink

-Rhab

Why Blizzard is Wrong for the Martin Fury Bans

First, let me start off by saying I love WoW. I spend time learning my classes and think that despite all the grief that Ghostcrawler gets for the things that have happened on his watch, he is the single best thing to happen to all the classes in WoW. The company (and the game) is better served by having a true renaissance man, something some many of the gaming geeks forget every time they log on.

I will also say that, as a prot pally, who didn’t start playing a paladin until after TBC, that when Kaplan dies, I hope his eternal damnation is nothing less than having to play vanilla WoW as a prot paladin, and watching him fail miserably. After each wipe, I want his raid to tell him how much he sucks and then have them all laugh at him in vent when he reminds them that he used to be a guildleader of one of the top guilds in Everquest. I hope this happens everyday for eternity, and I hope he cries and repents for the evil things he did to prot paladins (all hybrids really) early in the game’s life.

Now with that off my chest, the recent Martin Fury ban is completely out of line. I won’t pretend that I would have used the “legendary” chest piece. I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t have used it. To be completely honest, I have no way of knowing what I would have done. I would like to think that I would have reported the issue to a GM, but as someone who has had their account hacked and received what could best be described as a pathetic restoration, I might have scoffed at the mistake that was made and told Blizzard to kiss my ass and, of course, subsequently they would have told me to kiss theirs with an account ban.

The problem though is that the player didn’t do anything wrong. Not in the grand scheme of things. Sure it may have been morally suspect, but deciding whether something is wrong is a little more difficult. The item was not obtained through a hack, nor was it used in any way other than its intended use. It clearly calls you a cheater, and clearly says it will one shot anything. The problem with the cheater tag is that Blizzard often tags gear facetiously and therefore, though we can all acknowledge that it is “cheating,” it is also a Blizzard issued item. This isn’t an item that has any use but for that of questionable purpose. I have no idea why it would even exist except for the sole purpose of fart smelling*.

Since we all know about the item, how many of you would not have even tried it? I am not saying we all would have taken it into Ulduar, but I am sure we all might, following an account restoration, if it was some kind of joke. Say maybe take out the fel reaver roaming Hellfire? After finding it did in fact worked, we might have then reported it to a GM, but some of us would not have.

I know that the terms of service do not include using items in game that are officially received from Blizzard, and that they will stand behind section 8 of the terms of service that allows them to ban an account for any reason, and that they may try and point to section 9.C.i that states Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players. The problem is here, the item is not a bug. It, again, clearly states it’s intended purpose, and that purpose is to allow one shots. A bug is a design flaw; this item was, in Ghostcrawler’s favorite line, “functioning as intended.”

To obtain access that was otherwise unavailable, they received a little help from a GM. I remember a certain time when there was a bug in Dustwallow Marsh that would not allow me to complete a quest, I had a GM transport me there from Darnassus. This was access that was not otherwise available and allowed me to gain a certain advantage in completing the quest and therefore leveling which other players did not receive. Was I also violating the ToS?

I am not saying that the player in question, or his guild, was the smartest in the world. I am also not implying that what they did was right, but to ban the account when Blizzard seems to have taken zero responsibility, at least publically, for their participation in the debacle is an embarrassment.

-Rhab

*fart smelling is the term I use in honor of one of my favorite Southpark episodes where all the hybrid drivers also like to smell their own farts. It's a joke on elitism and ego and one I thouroughly enjoy and have made the term a part of my everyday vernacular.