As you all know, Sar has come to a bit of a crossroads in her progression. Recently, I was also informed that the guild’s raid times have been changed to an earlier start, which means that it is going to be increasingly difficult for me to make raids on time (since it translates to raid starts being at 11.30am for me, and that is really not practical). So, I have 4 options:

1. Quit raiding and go back to casual 5 manning and Kara-ing: Not especially appealing to do on Sar, because I can do this on Hermia with much more satisfaction.
2. Try and make raids: I CAN plausibly make the required raids, but it means that I need to commit hours during the day which I would rather spend doing ‘real life stuff’
3. Look for a new guild: There are two guilds on Cenarius that raid hours which are fantastic for me (WipE and Demons Downunder). Both of these guilds also have good reputations on Cenarius, so it would certainly not be a matter of the only available guilds being filled with asshats.
4. Find an alternative to raiding: Start focusing on arena or battlegrounds on Saresa, or make Hermia my main.

Point number 3 is a difficult one a couple of reasons. I am an exceedingly shy person, and I do have trouble getting to know new people. Being in raids with people I do not know makes me nervous, and when I am nervous I make a lot of silly mistakes. This is hardly ideal when you are trying to make a good impression on new guildmates! Also, I have perhaps an extreme sense of loyalty. I feel bad for contemplating the idea of leaving the people who geared me up and helped me along!

So, for now, i think I have settled for point number 4. This means that I am going to spend a bit of time experimenting with different arena specs, but for now am leaning towards trading my cookie cutter Succy Sac spec for a cookie cutter SL/SL spec (because I will be doing 2v2 battles with Kalf, our friendly neighbourhood resto druid). Of course, because I am a total noob at PvP, I am happy to hear tips from some friendly arena lovers out there!

So, instead of working hard for the loot, I will be working hard for the glory! I am not focusing on gear here, instead on just honing my skills and learning something along the way. Perhaps being a bit inventive and creative and coming up with different ways of killing suckers some other undoubtedly nice people. I will certainly keep you all posted.

P.S. My sister is watching Sex and the City… again. She purchased all six seasons, and is currently half way through. I am going insane. Save me!

When Season 4 rocks around, Blizz have said that there will be some new changes to arena PvP, specifically how arena gear is earned and how teams are matched up. Now, I’m not great at terrible at arena (and if you don’t believe me, I just DARE you to look up my incredibly dodgy arena team rankings right here), but it gets on my nerves when I see people selling high rating arena teams, or positions on high rating arena teams, so that people can mooch their way for free to the good gear. I am not a fan of people getting something for basically nothing, what can I say.

So for those of you who have not seen, these are the new changes:

“The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none”

“To help ensure that the challenge in obtaining these items stays true to those achieving these ratings, we’ll also be implementing new rules with an upcoming patch to curb practices that undermine the core concepts of the arena system. These rules are as follows:

• If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.

• If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.”

(From MMO-Champion)

Yay! No more moochers! And hopefully no more “WTS spot on highly rated 3v3 team!” on trade channel!