As I’ve already said before, I’m not a huge fan of the LFD tool. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think it’s an amazing tool, and I am thankful players have the option to make use of it. Personally, I can only do so many instances before I need a break. Perhaps this is because I play a priest (I almost wish I were a paladin) and I find learning 10+ new instances in a single evening very stressful to me. Once I’ve gone through a zone at least I know what to expect, and what I should be on the look out for. Entering a new instance can be incredibly frustrating, and then to follow that up with another (new) frustrating instance is something that I can’t do too many times in a row.
I like doing dungeons but after doing one or two that I’ve never been to before I like to fall back on the dungeons that I know how to prepare for. Ones I know how to adjust my healing for. Examples of this are the bombers in Blood Furnace and the encounter that causes all of your spells to take an exceptionally long time to cast in Mana-Tombs. Sure I could potentially scope out every single instance ahead of time and try to learn all of the encounters before I enter them – but that’s really not my idea of fun.
Last night I wanted to kick back a little, so I set the dungeon tool to Scholomance. Yes, I realize that at level 65 the zone isn’t going to offer up very many goodies, but it was a dungeon that I had never been to before (nor had Manos, warrior from guild) and I really wanted the achievement. The high level 50 characters we were with seemed incredibly excited that they had gotten into the group, and I was happy for that.
The one down side was a rogue in the group. I’ve never actually had to vote anyone OUT of a group before (nor have I been voted out, though I’m sure it will come eventually) but this one player was.. lets call them “special” – special in the way that they thought they were the tank, pulled everything, swore constantly, and were discussing Glee in depth even though no one was answering (because we had an entire room pulled on us). After they pulled the named (and almost died) I said that if they were going to do that again (this was not my first warning) I wouldn’t be healing them. I don’t heal stupidity. Sure that seems cruel but if I waste my mana healing someone who is obviously playing to the detriment of the group, it’s my fault. I discussed in guild whether or not we should consider putting a vote up to remove the player from group (after another room was pulled on us) and before I could come to a conclusion a 3rd member in the party made the decision for me.
Vote was cast, rogue was removed.
A warrior joined up and we completed the zone without further incident, and I got my achievement. I also managed to inch my way to level 66 – which means only four more levels to go before I can focus on Wrath of the Lich King. One thing I find a little odd. I can do the daily cooking quests now for Wrath, but I have to be level 70 before I do them for Burning Crusade. Ah well.
Also – thank you to those who left comments about AddOns yesterday. Anyone have a suggestion for a unit frame AddOn? I really dislike the circular ones (group and target) that we’re given by default. I think I’m set for everything else (so far). I picked up Grid, and Clique, and I’ve got GatherMate (which I adore) and a few others. If you can think of anything else I could benefit from please don’t hesitate to let me know in comments!
Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.
I used Xperl for unit frames, and I wish there was an EQ2 version of it. I *loved* Xperl. Easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to heal with.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13494-ShadowedUnitFrames.html
Somewhere in between the basic and a pitbull, far easier to customize but there’s less you can do. If you have a lot of time to play with your ui i would recommend Ouf but it requires all changes to be made in the lua file, but you can make a change then do /console reloadui and it will reflect the changes. Also if you do use Ouf make sure you back up your files before you update the addon because any updates will override your lua changes.
http://elitistjerks.com/f32/t23417-share_your_interface_read_first_post_no_really_read/p62/
That thread and forum of EJ has all sorta of stuff about UIs.
If you like gathermate then I recommend Routes, http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11401-Routes.html
For Unit frames: PitBull takes a fair bit of customising, but you can make them look fairly nice. Stuf even more so for both things; it takes exceptional patience to get it where you want it, but when it’s done you can have a real masterpiece of a UF. Ouf (and the layouts for it) have no in game customisation (apart from a couple of layouts,) but some of them look gorgeous and require you do nothing but install.