The story let down of Cataclysm

For some, they might think that I am just a band wagon person with hates towards World of Warcraft when I lambaste it at every opportunity. In some ways they might be right, but I generally hate on WoW not for the same reasons others might be; things like raid or die mentality, grinding, and triad and such things. I actually have other reasons to be put off by Blizzard in general, though one of them is a pet peeve mostly, the other I think is more or less a legitimate one, all things considered. This is the fact that Warcraft use to actually have a compelling story to it, and one that was interesting, but since Cataclysm, it just seems that Blizzard doesn't even care about that.

Now, while some people will probably want me to qualify that, I say just look at all the revamped quest lines in the old world in WoW and many of the new ones in the Cataclysm lands. Most of them are either memes of various movies or the internet, or an on-going poop joke that Blizzard seems very happy to constantly keep implementing in some form or another. Though it's sometimes cool to see the reference of a specific movie character, the fact that it's an ongoing gag now in many parts of the old world content is absolutely appalling. For instance, the entire Redridge Zone is now just one long Rambo joke, with Burning Steppes being more Rambo follow up.

The scary part is when Cataclysm debuted patch hit before the actual expansion launched, there was a lot of actual confusion and a few upset how all the original stories were now just a long train of meme and movie jokes, but it wasn't so loud. Of course, one of the most surprising turns was how a lot of the Horde specific players noted that the Alliance players had been shafted in the overall story department, as many of them claimed outright that the story the Horde received felt more fleshed out and actually engaging compared to the Alliance side quests which just felt like filler for something else that just isn't coming. But I think the obvious point where Blizzard dropped the ball on this came with the expansion when people got to experience to two new races and their starter content.

Now, the Goblins were pretty much a bunch of running gags and jokes about explosions left and right. I think people expected that and it was funny for them. Nothing more, nothing less and I don't think a single player expected it to be serious. But one of the things that was noted almost immediately was that the Goblins got not only starter content, but like every other race, got a zone devoted to them to carry them forward to level 20. In fact, a previously under used zone, Azshara, was completely remodeled to where it is now a Horde symbol, for no reason other than blatantly obvious, with the zone being remodeled with goblin speed ways and such. That was cool and many hoped and expected something similar for the Alliance.

Sadly, the ball was dropped badly in this case. Gilnean characters, also referred to as Worgen, received a starting epic storyline and it felt like it was going somewhere those there were a lot of obvious holes in points, but as the story reaches a climax... it just ends. No closure, no nothing. Worgen are shipped off to Darnasus and basically become Night Elves from that point forward, and the King vows revenge and he will reclaim Gilneas, and hangs out with King Wrynn in Stormwind. Needless to say I think the outrage was obvious at this point, with even Horde players upset over how badly this was. It demonstrated that Blizzard either rushed, didn't have a clue where it wanted to go with this, or just didn't care like they claimed, or possibly all three.

Many have noted how much love and attention the Goblin side content has received for starting players, and the how everything felt fully fleshed out. The Worgen content, while epic in scope, especially compared to the Goblin stuff, just ends with no closure or anything. In fact, as I am writing this, my character is sitting in what is dubbed the "Ruins of Gilneas" despite the only thing that would qualify as a ruin would be the northern part near the Greymane Wall. With a bit of tidying up, the entire city would be a functional capitol city just like any other city in the game world.

In short, this is nothing but a travesty, so much potential wasted. The original concept idea I understood was Gilneas was going to be what Tol Barad turned out to be, and I can just say, thank God that didn't happen. Tol Barad being one of the worst examples of competitive PvP in an attempt to copy WAR's PvP lake system and failing utterly. Some excuses were pinned up in how they couldn't get it to work, but in the end, I just think they have no idea what to do.

The kicker is, you can tell they were aiming at making it a capitol city to because there is an actually fully fleshed out map for it being a capitol city lay out like any other capitol city. Tells you the district names and everything. There are mailboxes all over to and I can make out where the ideal place they were planning for the auction house would have been to, but again either time constraints of the simple fact they had a worry they didn't want to contend with that stopped them.

In short, Gilneas suffers because of one thing and one thing only; Blizzard's worry that either Alliance will grief low level Horde players, or Horde will grief low level Alliance players. Though this is a legitimate worry, considering all things, this is an ill-founded one since both do an incredible amount of newbie griefing no matter the circumstances. So in short, this reasoning, which seems to be the only real one presented (besides they rushed as is evidenced by the shoddy Alliance content) is as weak and flimsy as a toothpick in holding this up.

Honestly, I love the atmosphere of Gilneas. I am a long time Ravenloft fan. For those who don't know, it was a campaign setting in Dungeons and Dragons. One based around story and gothic horror. Now some will tell me to go to Duskwood or play Forsaken on the Horde, but that isn't exactly what I call a solution, especially when there is no closure to a major gap in this critical storyline. Hell, I took a friend through the Gilneas arc recently, since he never did it and when the ending snuck up and bit him in the ass like that he was literally dumb founded that that was all there was to the entire starter content for Gilneas. He was actually rather upset that they ship us off to Darnasus to do elven content, and was even more upset when he found out that all Gilneas got was a tree within a tree in the capitol city of Darnasus.

Admittedly, the storyline was going beautifully and quite epic, seemingly starting at least a year, if not longer, before the entire Cataclysm happened and finishing right after the Cataclysm hit. Grant it a few points of the story made no sense, like for instance, why did the entire village of Duskhaven jsut fall into the sea? We were up at Greymane Manor, I think we would of least heard that happening, if not felt it, especially from the tidal influence that would of caused in the region alone, but instead, we don't realize Duskhaven is gone unless you actually look and see it's in the water now as you drive the carriage by. And many might not even notice for themselves to begin with.

The ending basically conveys that we take a Horde gunship and crash it into the Forsaken lines the ones launching plague bombs on the city. Now, I don't know what concept that falls under, but that is a clear victory in any book and should demonstrate we stopped the Horde, and saved the city. But instead of staying to start rebuilding the decimated Gilnean country-side, we tuck tail and run on the nearest elven boat without any real reason even though they state we won the day and force the Forsaken out with King Greymane declaring one day we will return.

Okay Blizzard, patch 4.2 is about to come out yet we've still not gotten one step closer to actually returning to Gilneas. And it's obvious to anyone with eyes that you have or had plans to make this place at least livable, if not an actual full blown player city. I am sure there is someone there at Blizzard who even had an entire NPC layout plan for the entire city with what happens at what time of day, just like Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Yet, you continue to sit on your laurels and do nothing about this obvious blight on your record to being serious about your very own lore.

But I think the real question is how do we resolve this issue then? Well put it simply, I say we need to have an event to make Gilneas an Alliance city again. It's obvious that Gineas beat back the Forsaken, but for whatever reason Blizzard was too worried about potential griefing or something of that nature. I think that is just a wash in and of itself, and at this point we can safely say, if players are going to grief they are going to grief and it doesn't matter what you do to try and stop them. This place is beautifully designed and very atmospheric, something a lot of the world of Azeroth lacks, unfortunately.

In short I would change the story up, even do more *gasp* phasing of the local areas. In this case, Silverpine Forest. Have one phase for starter Gilneans, starting at Pyrewood Village, and the other phase starting at where ever the Horde enter from at the north. This use of heavy phasing was done in Swamp of Sorrows and I have to say it worked beautifully. The fact this is not used, especially when there is Dalaran mages and especially Hillsbrad survivors that need saving is bewildering, to say the least. These areas don't have to be PvP zones and the phasing will keep them out of each other's hair until they complete their story, but to shuffle people off with no story closure is just bad, and the fact that Gilneas has not taken back their city by now is just distraughting.

The actual Gilnean countryside is rather large, but I would repopulate in some monsters and such here and there and maybe some remnants for either the Horde or Forsaken in particular for things to fight against. Stormglen Village would, of course, probably be like a new Goldshire area and I would actually treat it as such, including for Halloween events when the horseman attacks the inn, ironically that probably be the most appropriate to.

Various trainers and such can be spread out along the countryside but the main course would be in the city itself which is already appropriated properly. The cathedral would house the priests and the paladin trainers, of course, military area for things like warriors, rogues, hunters and Greymane Court could be where the mage trainer and warlock trainer are housed. Druids and Shaman would most likely be the wild card trainers, but placing them in Northgate Woods would not be out of the question. Merchants Square looked like it was being aimed at setting up in a bazaar type structure with the various merchants around. An auction house could either be in doors or in the bazaar style set up and of course a bank would be desirably placed somewhere in there.

From there I would actually have the people in Menethil Harbor abandon the town as it's completely lost, no matter what might be claimed, and move to Keel harbor where the boats to Dustwallow and Howling Fjord now come to. In short, there is little point to go to a port city that is under water now, and trying to pretend the ships would even dock there is a big stretch. Some things would have to be repaired like the bridge but we are led to believe that several months have passed since Gilneans "fled" their country to begin with and their start of adventuring over in Darnasus anyways.

A flight path to the city or several actually, would have to be installed but in general that can be acceptable. The last thing that would have to be considered is where King Greymane stays. Of course, his house is way out alone, which is technically easy for any flying horde to get to. Guards of all kinds would have to be placed around and such, or maybe Greymane sticks around with King Wrynn or something or hangs out in the city proper itself. Whichever.

Gilneas itself is called Ruins of Gilneas on the map, but again to anyone with eyes these are far from ruins and it's obvious there was a plan for the city as a whole. Blizzard actually needs to do something with it and stop letting this beautifully constructed and atmospheric zone go to waste. It was one of the few things in the new expansion that wasn't riddled with internet memes and clichés and it felt great. That and the worgen need an actual home again, considering how badly shafted worgen have been this expansion and the attempt to make us feel we have a place in the world with the replacement of former key NPCs and peppering us in random, out of the way locations might seem to be in good faith, but over all just tells us you weren't even sure where to take your story at this point.

Homogenization: A misused word

I know I said in my last blog I would write about healing, but I've come across another thing that has gotten me thinking back on tanking again. Mostly the fact that I have some of the most petty reasons why I never play certain classes. In this case, the reason I stopped playing my heroicly geared priest, for now at least, is because I can't stand not seeing her legs. Having grown up a tom boy wearing dresses in not exactly my thing, and I don't like it anymore on my fake avatar characters in a pretend video game it seems. And yep, that's as petty as you can get without diving into something as stupid as one pixel being off. I am just weird that way.

That being said, I saw a word getting tossed around A LOT this last weekend, and today, as I sat there roaming from archeology point to archeology point in the pointless meandering of digging for stupid lore that only a crazy person like myself would be interested in and not really caring about the rares (though I would not begrudge the game if it gave me Zin'Rok >_>) , I got to thinking about that single word that got tossed around like a dirty diaper that no one wanted to touch. And that word was homogenization.

In short summary, homogenization generally means to make everything the same or close to the same. Now, before people start going off on a rave train, when it comes to the convoluted and impenetrable granite octopus that is the MMO gaming industry, homogenization is actually a good thing. Especially in an industry that, for the longest time, was adamantly against choice. You don't have to look far to see proof, because even the monolithic sloth that is WoW demonstrated for a very long time, that it was solely against choice (despite what Blizzard claimed and lied about).

However, in the case of how this word is being used and what is actually being delivered, Inigo Montoya once said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. "  In short these people are using this term to state each and every class is exactly the same "like WoW" as they would generally use as their dead horse argument. But it's obvious even to a retarded monkey these people obviously have no clue what they are talking about, because even with the classes having much stronger positional roles than they did in previous expansions of the game they are still nothing alike. Each one still handles things in their own quirky ways, and it astonishes me how much people misuse this word just as much as they misuse immersion and quite a few other words.

Now, using WoW as my example, since it's pretty much the elephant people always say ignore but will never shut up about (irony?), I am going to discuss my experience with tanks from three separate classes. In this case, Death Knight, Warrior and Paladin. Why, because I've played all three, know how they work, and know that each one is still quite different, despite having similarities like a threat power and a taunt power (woah, two similarities, they have to be the same class, stupid homogenization /sarcasm). That being said, I won't comment on bears, except as an outside observer, because in general I hate druids, and most of the time I hate druid players because they are generally further up their own ass than most other players, and that's an incredible feat, especially since most of them play worse than paladins. Not saying all druids are bad, or jerks, but most of the ones I've come across have been.

Now if you look in WoW's past, despite anything the original text use to tell you, there was ONLY ever one tank in WoW and ONLY ever one healer in WoW. Anyone telling you that Druids and paladins were capable of tanking or healing were lying out their ass. Bears couldn't hold aggro for crap, and paladin seal and judgment system was so unwieldy that even attempting to maintain any form of threat in that convoluted system was a massive waste of time. And healing, druids brought a few tricks but were still not on par with priests and no way could raid heal effectively like a priest, and paladins only brought cleansing to the table, and only cleansing, and anything else was just extra so the paladin wouldn't blow their own brains out from mind numbing stupid boredom that was raiding with a paladin. Every time both these classes asked for fairness the response was cynical, at best, from Blizzard, condescending most of the time, with little more than pandering and putting poster children up to make the people playing those classes feel they were represented before firing said community people not more than a few months later. The only class that constantly felt it received love was of course, the shaman, which practically excelled at everything, except tanking due to the lighter armor they wore.

Now, everyone considered TBC to be the golden age of tanking for everyone else in joining the crowd, especially paladins who have been wanting to have a larger role in the grand scheme of raiding besides being a cleanse bot. What little I played, however, and tried, all I know is whoever claims that was blowing more gas than Congress does during a filibuster. Needless to say, paladin tanking still sucked ass, and the only area I might contend to agree with that they excelled at was the AE stuff, but let's face it, the WoW nerd is predictable and can't make up its mind if they want CC to be used or not to be used in their fights or what. The current wah wah from the majority of "It's too easy" crowd is generally in CC isn't being used enough pocket, even though they were the exact same ones that would claim CC was used too much back in the day. But, rose tinted glasses and all.

Anyways, enough about pining on the stupidity of all the classic stuff, that's the past, and the current game is still the current game. Everything's been streamlined, updated, and made more user friendly. Brace yourselves hardcore people, that's a good thing. However, unlike how these people will say, none of these classes play the exact same. Though homogenization is a word they throw out a lot as their Mary Sue argument, it has about as much weight as air and it's even less filling. So let me dive straight into the three tanks I've played and only think about druids, maybe.

First up is the Death Knight, Blood is their spec. Arguably, this can probably be seen as the strongest of the three tanks for several reasons. They have powerful AE aggro tools, they have self and team healing capabilities (depending on if how they glyph and spec) and probably have some of the best survival tools in the long run. But, the death knight is hamstringed by the runic system in that, unlike the previous expansion, the current death knight incarnation relies on a 1 minute CD mostly to use their plagues for effectiveness otherwise they lose a lot of their survivability, and some of their survival is still reliant on random chance. They pump out some of the best threat as well when it comes to the tanks, and have some of the best aggro control tools in the game, which makes a DK an invaluable tank, if you have a good one, or one of the worst, if it's a thicky behind the wheel.

Next is the paladin. And just like his past incarnation, his threat generation is still on the soft side. Paladins still excel at massive levels of AE threat generation and probably good for people that love to just throw out AE damage a lot. They also are very good at personal survival and have a couple of abilities that can be useful to a team as a whole, but in the thick of it all, are more about themselves than the actual team when it comes to tanking. Though they have the standard tools and a threat maker that isn't reliant on a stance or presence, they have no high threat moves that defines the other two tank classes, DKs and warriors, and this is the crux of the issue with paladin tanking and if they have DPS on their team that is more than adequate for the situation. Their attacks are also limited mostly by procs and a global cool down so it's only a class for the very patient, and tends to be a class for people that like to take things slowly and steadily and easily predictable. Though I had one paladin tan try to tell me paladins never lost aggro (despite me ripping it right off him without so much as doing two criticals) I do know unless the paladin is exceptionally better geared than the DPS, they actually have a tough time maintaining that threat.

Finally there is warrior. I can straight up say warrior tanking is not for me. It's very spastic, and I feel like a chimp spastically slapping buttons every time I tried playing my warrior. They have heavy single target threat, which is good, but it takes some effect to get crowds properly trained and it's a type of game play that needs to be mastered over time. It's not something you can jump into and expect to do well or just accidently get right like the other two have that ability. I have a lot of respect for warrior tanks in the current day and age of WoW, well the good ones at least, because to be as good as some of them have actually demonstrated must of taken some effort and time to actually do right. Especially the ones I've seen be able to hold off large groups of mobs. For me I always felt I kept coming up short, even if I was being told I was doing the best job ever as the tank, because it just feels like so much work as a warrior. And I never actually liked it in the end, because you were bouncing around so much from mob to mob to maintain that AE threat, as well as so many damn buttons (it felt like I needed to utilize two trays worth or fail) that it never really felt like there were options there as a warrior tank.

Again I just attribute this to warrior tanking just not being for me, and in the end, that is what is good about this set up. I have an optional choice to play as other tanks instead of being forced into exactly one role doing exactly one thing. And in those three instances I can say that as much as they are "homogenized" all three are still wildly different. Just because they have a taunt and heavy armor doesn't make them the same.

As far as bear tanks from my view points and what I have seen, I don't fancy them since they generally suck at threat management, still. I've seen quite a few good ones, but generally how most of the druids act in general is what throws me off and ends up forcing that uphill battle of you gotta prove yourself with me druid before I accept you mentality I have. Like right after the Cataclysm patch that changed all the classes and paladins ended having might placed at level 54 or something like that, had a druid telling me I was a moron for not using might, even though I was level 48 and had 6 levels to go before getting might. Actually was annoyed about not having might then myself, but that druid reinforced a lot of horror stories I've heard about druids, considering he was also terrible at the whole group thing.

Anyways, the entire point of this was because of how much homogenization has been getting thrown about the SWTOR forums, especially concerning the classes. In this case, BioWare was smart and saw people wanted options to play what they wanted, but not always in the concept that they, BioWare, might have imagined. Some people wanted to play an Inquisitor like a tank, like Darth Maul, so now we have that capability. Or to be a combat medic trooper instead. So that is an option. These are smart decisions and it's funny how people think this is not the case.

Now, going by from what I've read and actually seen, the three tanks classes will play exceptionally different from each other. The Trooper is a ranged tank, which means being in melee is not optimal to the class and kiting will be their best option. It also looks like troopers have a variety of attacks designed to slow or immobilize targets so they can keep that range. Jedi look to be the more traditional, in the enemies face type fighter relying on heavy armor and defensive abilities, which means will probably be more warrior-esque. Then the Consular is an  evasion tank which to me sounds like heavy amounts of dodging and probably using force heals and such much akin to a paladin with shields and such. That's three options and the less people have to rely on one class to do something, the better.

I don't know, I think it's just the elitist mind set kicking in these days and trying to say that any sense of choice or homogenization is a bad thing (despite these same people are the ones that scream if there is no choice) and the days of Furor and Tigole (the same people that had the warrior sit in in EQ that crashed the servers that became developers on WoW in its early days mind you, so figure that out) where everyone only relying on exactly one class to fill the specific roles of tank and healer are still strongly ingrained in their hearts. Personally, games will never truly escape the tank, healer, dps model, no matter how much people say it's past its prime (despite roles are used in real life, you don't send a plumber to do brain surgery after all) however the option that specific classes can choose multiple roles is a good thing and trying to dissuade that choice is just silly.

My Personal View on UI Mods

The past week or so I've been debating which topic to hit on. I was going to talk about healing, but then I realized nothing but a nice juicy topic about game modules/modifications (aka mods) would actually be interesting. Why? Because I've never had to use them in my life since most MMO encounters are designed around big idiot warning lights (even way back in the day when Baron Ghedon would make you the living bomb, you still had an obvious warning light to get the hell away) but the simple fact of the matter if you are in a serious raiding guild, one of the pre-requirements to join are obvious modifications to the game designed to play the game for you.

Now, before we get into the meat of this argument, I am not 100% against game modifications, when it concerns quality of life things, like extra bars if a game has too many buttons but not enough hot key space, or things like scrolling combat text (two things that Blizzard didn't include in the main client for a year and a half mind you). I personally have a mod to give me a center screen HUD and makes the text more legible for me, as well as one that combines all my bags so I don't have to open every bleeding one of them to be able to do anything important in the game. Maybe even a few art tweaks to the UI since stone gryphons aren't exactly my pallet, but that's me, looking for taste and substance over dreariness.

But that's where I draw the line with mods. As a long time gamer, and having been gaming longer than I care to admit, the challenge of a game was always doing things yourself. I've been listening to the complaints lately of how new content is so easy from the vocal minority, and knowing partly that reason is because Blizzard can only make the same encounter with the same gimmick so many times before people realize they've done it before, and partly because most of the raiders were already well over geared by the time they added the heroic Zul's, the other fact I look at is how many of them use even a basic mod that tells them the obvious thing to do like DeadlyBossMod? And it doesn't stop there, because I know there are mods out there that do the cleansing for you, or auto heal a target as long as you push a button and mouse over, or even spell interrupt for you.

These type of mods are pre-requirements for raiding guilds and I have to ask, why? It's epicly tragic to because in my mind, if you have skill and are good these are things you do not use and actually pay attention to what you are doing, not listening for the chime and the big text a mod throws in your face to tell you what to do like a well trained terrier. And these are the people that call other's baddies to, mind you, and for me that's just epicly funny, because honestly, if you need a mod to play the game for you, then to me that's no better than throwing the god code on in Doom 2 or clipping and claiming you beat the game on its hardest difficulty. Sure the mods won't keep you from dying but half the challenge in these fights is doing the actions and paying attention to the world environment yourself, and that's part of the challenge that I think a lot of people rob themselves of.

I've made it no small thing to state that I am happy that The Old Republic will not allow modifications at the beginning of the games launch. I know they've stated that the future can always change and such, but I really hope that one of the things they do is put a limit to what can be modified, like basic UI elements to get QOL things for the people that need them. Otherwise, allowing mods like DBM and others to run the game for you is asking for the same stupidity virus syndrome that kicks in where people claim things are too easy.

And before the honking begins, I play a tank and a healer. This means that I have to pay attention to things that are happening around me as well as threat and all the other things there. Of course, if you are a smart tank or healer, or even DPS in this case, you've already pushed the V key (default) to bring up enemy health bars. This wonderful little tool lets people not only see the health of their enemies and target enemies in a pool of diatribe if they happen to lose their target, but also lets you know if you are in danger of getting enemy threat on enemies. It also has the handy little feature of letting you see enemy cast bars which lets you counter them or get ready to do something to avoid the flak of a major attack. Plain and simple.

Now, being the tank is probably a lot easier than being a healer, depending on who your tank is as a healer, since life can be boring or hectic either way, but healers have a bit of extra work, most of the time. Most of the time healers are not focused on enemies but rather party health bars and any possible threat they've generated. This means they rarely see cast bars for enemies. However, the beautiful thing is, most enemies have ridiculously obvious charge up animations that basically tell even a healer to get ready to do something.

Now, I know the major argument will be healers are the ones in need of mods like DBM the most, but let me digress this. Again I don't use any mods that are designed to play the game for me, I use everything that's inherent in the system and actually use that skill to look for myself. So let me take an encounter in Stonecore, from the healer perspective as an example.

There is a giant in that dungeon that every half a minute or so will do a ground stomp attack. Now for melee they get a cast bar. The objective is to jump before the foot hits the ground again to avoid AE damage from the attack. Melee have it easy and it's just a matter of watching the cast bar. As a healer, this is not the case, however, the animation for this is an exaggerated and 2 second long foot stomp thing, and if you are paying attention you can easily avoid this damage just by jumping at the height of the foot stomp animation. That's probably the simplest one to understand but many of the avoidable damage forms in the entire game use similar and overly exaggerated animations. And this is speaking from the perspective of a healer.

In the end though that's to me what separates those with skills from those that are truly pretending. If you need a mod to tell you about the obvious warning lights that even Blizzard put in the core game, then you are definitely doing something wrong yourself. I do enjoy being called a baddie though because I think relying on mods to play the game for me is the most epic form of demonstrating how bad you are. I've ran into several dozen people the past few weeks who were incapable of playing the basic game without a UI mod to either dictate or play the game for them, from a healbot mod to DBM. To me that's sad.

And again, I am not totally against mods. I am all for UI art tweaks or positioning changes to make things familiar and comfortable, or even custom art design for the UI. But some of the mods I dig through on sites like Curse just boggle me. I've seen some mods that are just cluster fucks with the self proclaimed title of easy mods and such, but when looking at them there is less visible screen space than if you decided to cover up 3 inches of your outer screen monitor. And these are suppose to be simple, efficient modifications for UIs, and it only leaves me asking questions, "why?" Some of these mods add so many blasted buttons to the interface I keep wondering what do you need it all for? You cannot possibly have so many spells that you need 5 dozen more trays for buttons. Hell, using two bars alone is a miracle since most of the time, unless the fight is really a clutcher, I only use one tray of all the buttons  I have out.

But whatever, in the end, it still a matter of taste I guess. Some people are comfortable seeing buttons they will never, ever use I guess. But that still leaves the fact, if you need a mod to play the game for you, you might want to re-evaluate facts when you call someone a bad. Of course, the people that say they use to do these things back in the old raids before Blizzard started putting warning buzzards up is laughable, because a few of them I remember, and they were adamant about using the earliest forms of DBM and such for things like the living bomb with Baron Ghedon. I remember those mods well, and the stupid annoying 15 tells I would get while I was already running away from the raid group before I exploded.

Hopefully, next blog I will actually write that healing one and maybe have a few pointers to those who are interested.