I know all of this has been covered elsewhere, likely by people far more clever than me. But recent events have made me stop and compile everything I know about leadership and from all the angles in which I have experienced leadership. I don't expect this to be groundbreaking by any means, but I wanted to organize my thoughts.
Leadership from the bottom
In my real life job, I unfortunately have been working in non-leadership roles for the past several years. So I know what it is like to feel like the under-appreciated, unknown, faceless and nameless cog in the business machine. From down here, it is certainly tempting to believe that everyone who is in a supervisory role has perks that I will never get.
In the position I held before this one, I was expected to keep the phone/desk covered at all times, along with another secretary in the department. This meant having to coordinate lunches with her and being as punctual as I could be. If either of us made it to work a little late, that was a problem. Leaving early was nearly out of the question. And God forbid we ever wanted the same day off or both happened to get sick at the same time! To see every other person in the department strolling in whenever they felt like it, taking long lunches, going to the gym mid-day, being able to go to the bathroom without having to clear it with someone else first (no wonder I hated that fucking job), yeah, they had perks that came from their position.
However, I made a lateral transfer to another department where the requirements are different, and suddenly the game has changed. I take long lunches. I can come in a little late and work over to make up for it. I don't have anyone making me dress up 5 days a week. I also get stuck with all the grunt work no one else wants to do and I see my supervisor abusing the living hell out of his "Exempt" status (no one has as much sick time as he takes). There still seem to be perks I will never have.
I have to assume that there are parts of these leadership positions that are less desirable. Perhaps dealing with the budget or attempting to steer an agenda through the turbulent waters of campus politics is more onerous than I imagine.
Still, it's difficult to respect most middle management here - the "officers" of the business world. There are some who clearly watch out for their teams, but there are just as clearly some who play favorites or seek only their own interests. Some seem to be completely checked out as far as interest in their jobs. Sometimes the person watching out for their team might also be the same person who then plays favorites among them.
So what are the bright spots for a lowly grunt? What are the positives I have seen from management here and how might I be able to take that and translate it into watching out for my guildies? What should I avoid because it'll make me look like a jerk? Here are things I would like to tell my boss (only without the WoW references, obviously).
Showing posts with label I has opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I has opinions. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Monday magery (in which I try to actually be helpful)
Last week, I saw a cry for help in Twitter for good mage resources. Since I love mages, my immediate thought was: Ooh, I could help! But as it turns out, the only things I've really written about mages were either senseless lists encouraging other people to be jerks or angst at Blizz for consistently giving us crappy changes in the patches and trivializing us to the point of being good for int, focus magic and food.
Anyhow, Miss Bubbles found something else and mentioned it and I Googled it to see what she had discovered. As I started reading through the guide, my instant response was no no no nonononononononono!
Wherefore doth every mage advice giver say "Level frost!"? That advice is shit, so I figured it was up to me to provide an alternate viewpoint in the sea of frost-loving tards to say, bravely and with great conviction, don't go frost. Go fire. Or arcane. But don't go frost.
And here's why - frost is lame. The only thing it is good for is survivability in PvP or PvP-esque encounters (looking at you faction champs!). Aside from that, it is painful and lame and I will mock you should I ever PUG an instance with you. Hard core and behind your back. Because that's how I roll.
So here, from 10-80, is the way I would spend those precious talent points and why.
Levels 1-9
Ha! You don't get talents! You do get the basics of your toolbox though.
Spells to watch for: You get all the bare basics here. Food, water, int, fireballs and frostbolts. You'll also get your first armor, Frost Armor, and sorry, you're stuck with it for a while. Polymorph also comes into play and both can be life savers so make sure they're very available.
Level 10-20
This is going to sound a little 'backards,' but I strongly advise putting the first 11 points into the frost tree. This is because Blizz is making an obvious attempt to steer people into the frost tree and gives mostly frost-based spells for the first several levels. Like many other classes, mages aren't actually any fun until about level 20 or so. Thank God they've tweaked the mana regen issues too, because the water they let you make is crap. Anyhow, you can't go wrong with Precision and Icy Veins is an absolute must. So the first three points should go into Ice Floes to reduce that CD for when you get Icy Veins. As soon as you do, abandon the frost tree with all haste. Unless you want to go frostfire at end game, there's never any good reason to put another point in there. Also as soon as you get Icy Veins, macro that sucker to whatever spell it is you choose to spam.
Spells to watch for: You get a few AoE abilities through here - Flamestrike and Arcane Explosion. Slow Fall is nice, especially when you glyph for it. Blink is your friend in sticky situations, use it with Frost Nova for a quick escape before following up with a Blizzard AoE. Evocation can cut down on drink time so use it whenever you can between pulls.
Level 21-30 Fire
I switched between arcane and fire while leveling Alas, and loved each one fairly equally. In this guide, I will focus on fire only since I do tend to recommend to guild-mates that they go fire just because it's so damn much fun. There's a lot of nice stuff to be had, even at the bottom of the tree (or top depending on how you like to look at it. I call it the bottom because it's the first stuff you get...). In fact, there is so much nice stuff that I often have problems advising people on what to pick up first. I try to lean more towards what I feel would be useful for leveling, rather than what you'll absolutely want to have for the raiding scene. Since the lower levels are pretty spammy with with the same spell over and over, I am recommending Improved Fireball, followed by Ignite for the DoT effect.
Spells to watch for: You get Scorch, Counterspell and Ice Block here. Use Scorch with wild abandon in your rotation and counterspell is great for bringing casters into melee range when running with a tank. Ice Block is another life saver if you overpull and there's someone around to help you out. If you're alone, you're just postponing squishy, squishy death. Mana gems also start here and they are delightful to use during pulls so you don't have to stop mid-fight for Evocation.
Level 31-40 Fire
This is about the level range you get to start picking up some more interesting stuff. Although I have filled out a few more things in the second tier, you'll want to go ahead and pick up Pyroblast first. This is a terrific (long cast) spell to start a fight with, especially when it crits. World of Flames will improve that crit chance and then Flame Throwing will increase the distance the mob has to run to reach you. Improved Scorch is handy for having a nice quick spell to toss on a mob that will add an extra DoT. About this point, you should be able to effectively kill most single targets before they reach you.
Spells to watch for: You get Mage Armor! Yay! Start using it immediately. That's it, unless you think portals are an exciting spell to watch for.
Level 41-50 Fire
If you're having any sort of mana problems, you'll want to drop your next few points immediately into Master of Elements to finish filling that out. Otherwise, I would start with Critical Mass and Blast Wave before going back and filling MoE in. You then have several options, all of them good, for where to drop the last four. I would pick up Improved Fire Blast from the bottom of the tree and then grab a few points in Incineration.
Spells to watch for: You get jack diddly through here. No really. More upranks of stuff you have but nothing new to speak of.
Level 51-60 Fire
As soon as you hit level 51, grab Combustion and then add that sucker to your macro with Icy Veins. Then fill out Pyromaniac before darting back up to fill out Incineration and then grab all 5 points in Fire Power. In many ways, this is where the points get harder to place because there is so much lovely stuff and so few points to actually spend.
Spells to watch for: You get jack diddly through here. Except that Arcane Brilliance is nice for having to mass buff parties/raids.
Level 61-70 Fire
There are lots of leveling goodies to pick up here. Start with filling up Hot Streak because there is nothing more wonderful than an instant cast Pyroblast after a pair of crits. Dragons Breath, Firestarter and Empowered Fire are all well worth the points, particularly if you are running a lot of dungeons with mass AoE pulls. Dragon's Breath is a point I have a love/hate relationship with, because I strongly feel that mobs shouldn't be close enough to have to use that. However, I have been known to pretend to be a melee mage so I could combine that with Firestarter and instant Flamestrike goodness. If you are doing a lot of AoE/close-to-the-mobs-damage, it is probably worth it to glyph to get rid of the knockback on on Blast Wave to keep everything in your flamestrikes. You'll also want to backtrack again to pick up a point in Molten Shields. Molten Armor becomes available at very long last at level 62 and you will want to rock that like there's no tomorrow as soon as you get it.
Spells to watch for: Molten Armor! Invisibility! Tables of food! Spellsteal can also be tons of fun - you'll soon learn which mobs have nice things to take for your own.
Level 71-80 Fire (leveling)
There are two paths to take at this point. One is to keep the fun leveling talents that you'll kiss goodbye come raiding because again, all of this has been a leveling spec and won't net you much but anger from tanks come raid time (I myself nearly got killed back in TK: The Eye for using Blast Wave with the knockback because an irate tank thought he needed to have mobs close to hit them and get aggro). Anyhow, round out the rest of the tree by getting Burnout, Living Bomb (more AoE fun and happiness) and that last point in Molten Shields. After that, you have three points left. I've seen many mages put them into Arcane Focus for the +hit. But you might also consider dropping them in Playing with Fire.
Spells to watch for: You get to ditch making food and water separately through here, as well as pick up frostfire bolt at long last (that would be the time to switch to the raid spec, btw). At 80 you get Larry, Curly and Moe, your very own three stooges, who are pretty stupid but are a nice way to drop threat when some big ugly comes after you.
Level 71-80 (prep for raiding)
If you're looking to raid, you'll want to respec right around 75, although it could certainly be held off longer. However, you will likely want to give yourself a few levels to adjust to the different play style, because it is different. If you want the cookie-cutter spec, go hit up talentchic.com or something. If you want the Alas frostfire raiding spec, click the link above. Mine is basically the cookie cutter version with a tweak that I personally refuse to live without; namely, ditching Molten Fury in order to keep the two points in Molten Shields. I think I understand the mindset behind putting points into something that boosts damage against targets with less than 35% health given the many, many bosses that enrage or get really difficult towards the end of their life spans. However, increasing overall crit all the time makes more sense to me for a build that relies so heavily upon crit.
This is all turning out to be much longer than I anticipated, so I'll add something else later about glyphs, stats and rotations in another post. In the meantime, enjoy and stay away from frost.
Anyhow, Miss Bubbles found something else and mentioned it and I Googled it to see what she had discovered. As I started reading through the guide, my instant response was no no no nonononononononono!
Wherefore doth every mage advice giver say "Level frost!"? That advice is shit, so I figured it was up to me to provide an alternate viewpoint in the sea of frost-loving tards to say, bravely and with great conviction, don't go frost. Go fire. Or arcane. But don't go frost.And here's why - frost is lame. The only thing it is good for is survivability in PvP or PvP-esque encounters (looking at you faction champs!). Aside from that, it is painful and lame and I will mock you should I ever PUG an instance with you. Hard core and behind your back. Because that's how I roll.
So here, from 10-80, is the way I would spend those precious talent points and why.
Levels 1-9
Ha! You don't get talents! You do get the basics of your toolbox though.
Spells to watch for: You get all the bare basics here. Food, water, int, fireballs and frostbolts. You'll also get your first armor, Frost Armor, and sorry, you're stuck with it for a while. Polymorph also comes into play and both can be life savers so make sure they're very available.
Level 10-20
This is going to sound a little 'backards,' but I strongly advise putting the first 11 points into the frost tree. This is because Blizz is making an obvious attempt to steer people into the frost tree and gives mostly frost-based spells for the first several levels. Like many other classes, mages aren't actually any fun until about level 20 or so. Thank God they've tweaked the mana regen issues too, because the water they let you make is crap. Anyhow, you can't go wrong with Precision and Icy Veins is an absolute must. So the first three points should go into Ice Floes to reduce that CD for when you get Icy Veins. As soon as you do, abandon the frost tree with all haste. Unless you want to go frostfire at end game, there's never any good reason to put another point in there. Also as soon as you get Icy Veins, macro that sucker to whatever spell it is you choose to spam.
Spells to watch for: You get a few AoE abilities through here - Flamestrike and Arcane Explosion. Slow Fall is nice, especially when you glyph for it. Blink is your friend in sticky situations, use it with Frost Nova for a quick escape before following up with a Blizzard AoE. Evocation can cut down on drink time so use it whenever you can between pulls.
Level 21-30 Fire
I switched between arcane and fire while leveling Alas, and loved each one fairly equally. In this guide, I will focus on fire only since I do tend to recommend to guild-mates that they go fire just because it's so damn much fun. There's a lot of nice stuff to be had, even at the bottom of the tree (or top depending on how you like to look at it. I call it the bottom because it's the first stuff you get...). In fact, there is so much nice stuff that I often have problems advising people on what to pick up first. I try to lean more towards what I feel would be useful for leveling, rather than what you'll absolutely want to have for the raiding scene. Since the lower levels are pretty spammy with with the same spell over and over, I am recommending Improved Fireball, followed by Ignite for the DoT effect.
Spells to watch for: You get Scorch, Counterspell and Ice Block here. Use Scorch with wild abandon in your rotation and counterspell is great for bringing casters into melee range when running with a tank. Ice Block is another life saver if you overpull and there's someone around to help you out. If you're alone, you're just postponing squishy, squishy death. Mana gems also start here and they are delightful to use during pulls so you don't have to stop mid-fight for Evocation.
Level 31-40 Fire
This is about the level range you get to start picking up some more interesting stuff. Although I have filled out a few more things in the second tier, you'll want to go ahead and pick up Pyroblast first. This is a terrific (long cast) spell to start a fight with, especially when it crits. World of Flames will improve that crit chance and then Flame Throwing will increase the distance the mob has to run to reach you. Improved Scorch is handy for having a nice quick spell to toss on a mob that will add an extra DoT. About this point, you should be able to effectively kill most single targets before they reach you.
Spells to watch for: You get Mage Armor! Yay! Start using it immediately. That's it, unless you think portals are an exciting spell to watch for.
Level 41-50 Fire
If you're having any sort of mana problems, you'll want to drop your next few points immediately into Master of Elements to finish filling that out. Otherwise, I would start with Critical Mass and Blast Wave before going back and filling MoE in. You then have several options, all of them good, for where to drop the last four. I would pick up Improved Fire Blast from the bottom of the tree and then grab a few points in Incineration.
Spells to watch for: You get jack diddly through here. No really. More upranks of stuff you have but nothing new to speak of.
Level 51-60 Fire
As soon as you hit level 51, grab Combustion and then add that sucker to your macro with Icy Veins. Then fill out Pyromaniac before darting back up to fill out Incineration and then grab all 5 points in Fire Power. In many ways, this is where the points get harder to place because there is so much lovely stuff and so few points to actually spend.
Spells to watch for: You get jack diddly through here. Except that Arcane Brilliance is nice for having to mass buff parties/raids.
Level 61-70 Fire
There are lots of leveling goodies to pick up here. Start with filling up Hot Streak because there is nothing more wonderful than an instant cast Pyroblast after a pair of crits. Dragons Breath, Firestarter and Empowered Fire are all well worth the points, particularly if you are running a lot of dungeons with mass AoE pulls. Dragon's Breath is a point I have a love/hate relationship with, because I strongly feel that mobs shouldn't be close enough to have to use that. However, I have been known to pretend to be a melee mage so I could combine that with Firestarter and instant Flamestrike goodness. If you are doing a lot of AoE/close-to-the-mobs-damage, it is probably worth it to glyph to get rid of the knockback on on Blast Wave to keep everything in your flamestrikes. You'll also want to backtrack again to pick up a point in Molten Shields. Molten Armor becomes available at very long last at level 62 and you will want to rock that like there's no tomorrow as soon as you get it.
Spells to watch for: Molten Armor! Invisibility! Tables of food! Spellsteal can also be tons of fun - you'll soon learn which mobs have nice things to take for your own.
Level 71-80 Fire (leveling)
There are two paths to take at this point. One is to keep the fun leveling talents that you'll kiss goodbye come raiding because again, all of this has been a leveling spec and won't net you much but anger from tanks come raid time (I myself nearly got killed back in TK: The Eye for using Blast Wave with the knockback because an irate tank thought he needed to have mobs close to hit them and get aggro). Anyhow, round out the rest of the tree by getting Burnout, Living Bomb (more AoE fun and happiness) and that last point in Molten Shields. After that, you have three points left. I've seen many mages put them into Arcane Focus for the +hit. But you might also consider dropping them in Playing with Fire.
Spells to watch for: You get to ditch making food and water separately through here, as well as pick up frostfire bolt at long last (that would be the time to switch to the raid spec, btw). At 80 you get Larry, Curly and Moe, your very own three stooges, who are pretty stupid but are a nice way to drop threat when some big ugly comes after you.
Level 71-80 (prep for raiding)
If you're looking to raid, you'll want to respec right around 75, although it could certainly be held off longer. However, you will likely want to give yourself a few levels to adjust to the different play style, because it is different. If you want the cookie-cutter spec, go hit up talentchic.com or something. If you want the Alas frostfire raiding spec, click the link above. Mine is basically the cookie cutter version with a tweak that I personally refuse to live without; namely, ditching Molten Fury in order to keep the two points in Molten Shields. I think I understand the mindset behind putting points into something that boosts damage against targets with less than 35% health given the many, many bosses that enrage or get really difficult towards the end of their life spans. However, increasing overall crit all the time makes more sense to me for a build that relies so heavily upon crit.
This is all turning out to be much longer than I anticipated, so I'll add something else later about glyphs, stats and rotations in another post. In the meantime, enjoy and stay away from frost.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Patch 3.3
So, here are some highlights and lowlights -
Icecrown Citadel
All three wings of the 5-player dungeon are currently available for testing.
Select encounters in the 10- and 25-player raid dungeon are available for limited testing.
Quel’Delar Quest Chain: The Battered Hilt, the item needed to start this quest line, can now be purchased from all glyph vendors on the public test realms.
Well, yay. I'm so tired of all the old dungeons and I am not even a hardcore badge farmer by any stretch of any imagination. Also, since we made it through ToC at least the one time, that means we're totally ready for Icecrown, right? RIGHT?
Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.
IT'S ABOUT TIME.
Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
NOES. How will I artificially inflate my dps now? Dammit.
Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron's lair.
Oh, like it was that hard. Geeze. I'm a casual and this is too damn easy for my liking.
Arcane changes for Mages
Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage’s party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.
....wtf? This is what I get? I get to help the rest of the raid do damage? Do you think that's going to encourage anyone to give me all the pretty +crit loots? Because it is not. So there is no profit for arcane mages in 3.3. Eff you, Blizz. When are you going to give mages something they can sink their teeth into?
Tentative status added for calendar responses.
Well, glory-glory, hallelujah! That wasn't so hard now, was it? When did I suggest that? Oh right, forever ago.
Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
Oh, Blizz - that's adorable! Seriously, make it more like 500 people to ignore. There are so many idiots and I really don't have any patience for them. At all. Ever.
The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
Argent Crusade
Alliance Vanguard
Horde Expedition
Kirin Tor
Knights of the Ebon Blade
Sons of Hodir
Wyrmrest Accord
Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
...I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. FUCK YOU TOO.
Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
Never mind. All is forgiven. Are we cool?
I am not even going to touch on the changes to the heroics and looking for raids and all of that. It has been discussed unto death and my only thought about it currently is that it's going to make for some terribad server stability tonight.
Icecrown Citadel
All three wings of the 5-player dungeon are currently available for testing.
Select encounters in the 10- and 25-player raid dungeon are available for limited testing.
Quel’Delar Quest Chain: The Battered Hilt, the item needed to start this quest line, can now be purchased from all glyph vendors on the public test realms.
Well, yay. I'm so tired of all the old dungeons and I am not even a hardcore badge farmer by any stretch of any imagination. Also, since we made it through ToC at least the one time, that means we're totally ready for Icecrown, right? RIGHT?
Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.
IT'S ABOUT TIME.
Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
NOES. How will I artificially inflate my dps now? Dammit.
Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron's lair.
Oh, like it was that hard. Geeze. I'm a casual and this is too damn easy for my liking.
Arcane changes for Mages
Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage’s party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.
....wtf? This is what I get? I get to help the rest of the raid do damage? Do you think that's going to encourage anyone to give me all the pretty +crit loots? Because it is not. So there is no profit for arcane mages in 3.3. Eff you, Blizz. When are you going to give mages something they can sink their teeth into?
Tentative status added for calendar responses.
Well, glory-glory, hallelujah! That wasn't so hard now, was it? When did I suggest that? Oh right, forever ago.
Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
Oh, Blizz - that's adorable! Seriously, make it more like 500 people to ignore. There are so many idiots and I really don't have any patience for them. At all. Ever.
The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
Argent Crusade
Alliance Vanguard
Horde Expedition
Kirin Tor
Knights of the Ebon Blade
Sons of Hodir
Wyrmrest Accord
Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
...I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. FUCK YOU TOO.
Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).
Never mind. All is forgiven. Are we cool?
I am not even going to touch on the changes to the heroics and looking for raids and all of that. It has been discussed unto death and my only thought about it currently is that it's going to make for some terribad server stability tonight.
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