The World of MavrosCraft

The World of MavrosCraft 

March 2018

I have been on my soapbox for awhile now about various things I wanted Blizzard to change. Time to put those ruminations to “paper”.

I wanted to give all that will read this my perspective on things I wish Blizzard would change about the World of Warcraft. First, what gives me the authority to criticize the behemoth that is Blizzard about their longest running intellectual property? Well, my experience and my long journey with them through every xpac in this World of Warcraft that many of us still love. When you love something you want to make it better, so here are my thoughts on making it better. PLUS, instead of just bitching about it...I am writing about it.

When I started playing WOW, many of you were probably still in diapers or at least still wetting the bed. I am sure some of you are still wetting the bed and some are wetting themselves on purpose for reasons we do not quite understand...uhum...Prakas. As a side note, I have been playing this game with Bloodrooted, Ishin, Stranglehorn, and Wornight for OVER 10 years together. Not sure many know that, but that is a long journey to be on with some people you met in-game over a decade ago.

I know my views on things may seem a bit one-sided at times and really revolve around end-game, but so be it. The rest of the game is fluff to me, the real challenge is Mythic raid bosses and working as a team to get them down. I guess NOW there is also M+ dungeons which to me are an awesome addition to the game.

In no particular order I humbly suggest these changes to Blizzard. Feel free to critique/comment/disagree/agree with any of them and reference them by number for easier reference.

1) Mythic raids should be flexible/scalable from 15-20 raiders. In this day and age, it is harder and harder to get 20 stable individuals together. SO, scale it and be done with the nonsense. What is that you say? The raids are tuned for 20?? Well, not anymore, now they need to be tuned for 15-20 and change mechanics/boss health/boss damage based on it. Whatever..just do it, it will make SO many guilds happy and like 3 top guilds unhappy. They can go play League of Legends. Honestly, is there even a “world race” anymore? Do people even care when NOW 15 year olds are winning 100K playing Hearthstone and Overwatch tournaments?

2) Timewalking has to go! No one is that nostalgic and it ruins the fun of the nostalgia that we MIGHT have even had. It literally leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In the latest updates, Blizzard has made TW even more tedious and time consuming. The words “I hate TW” are synonymous with “Blood is a perv and wears a dirty clown suit” at this point. EITHER make it 1-2 5 mans a week for TW bonus OR get rid of it entirely! Seriously, NO one will miss it, not even Ishin.

3) Tier sets. Blizzard cannot get it right, so they opted to get rid of them entirely. Dumb when there is an EASY fix. My solution is to just give a FLAT PRIMARY stat increase for 2pc, 4pc, 6 pc bonuses. Voila! Fixed! Now every current tier is now BETTER than the last tier. Was it that hard? Send me my check please! Use talent builds for cool mechanics, procs, etc.

4) Leveling. FFS give us a new way to level. I do not want to do the stupid quests to gather 10 feathers from decaying birds anymore then go back and turn it in to go kill the decaying boss bird that poops out a key that is needed to open a chest that has rat feces in it so that Apateaz can trade it to me in raid. STOP it. We have been doing it for FAR too long. Give us a NEW WAY. I also don't mean 5 man spamming....that will ruin our 5 man experience, but doing some 5 mans on the way to max level would be cool OR let me pay my way to max level. I do not care about the story, although watching Ysera die made me sad as well as Margaux from Suramar, but those were cut scenes, so for that, YouTube.

5) Legendary items should go bye-bye. They are doing this in BFA, TG! It was a decent idea, terrible execution. I would be ok if they brought them back, but purely with utility not HPS/DPS increases.

6) Primary stats should be 10 times better then secondary. ENOUGH with wearing lower iL gear because crit is better than primary stat or a different secondary stat by X. I thought Blizzard was trying to simplify?? They failed, SO, another EASY solution is to bump primary stats WAYYY up for every class and spec. Fixed again! Higher iL loot should always be better than lower iL loot, no matter what!

7) Add primary stat to necklaces and rings. This keeps #6 intact.

8) Bring back mass summon. It is just tedious to wait for a lock or use the dumb stone. Why are you making us waste our precious time?

9) IF #8 cannot be done, THEN summoning should be allowed by more than warlocks. Battle rezes went from Druid to then DK, druid, hunter, and lock. Why not do the same with warlock summons OR just add mass summons back in see #8

10) DO NOT being back reforging, adds too much nonsense to the game. With the primary stat fix above with #6, it should not matter. Secondaries should just be for fun and an afterthought really. Make us master our rotation, our class, our toolkit, not min-maxing secondary stats to eek out 1-2% more. That is the exact definition of NOT fun.

11) Survival hunter. So, Blizz added a new melee class to the game in Demon Hunters. So, then with an influx of melee, what is the smart thing to do? Make one of the 3 hunters specs melee of course!! WTH?! Make it ranged again and stop it and do not do that again.

12) The Warlock DEMO spec should be a tank spec. I stole this idea, but I saw someone else say it and I liked the idea! More tank specs is never a bad thing.

13) ADD a new class with all 4 specs. An Illusionist is my idea. That way they project an image of a tank or healer or melee or ranged role. Projections can vary. Maybe they get a certain class of projections like ghosts or undead, demons, bugs, vacuum cleaners, etc. whatever, I think you get the point! Could be fun!

14) Keep working Mythic +. A really great start to make 5 mans meaningful again! Award much higher rewards for getting keys on TIME though. Add rewards for going beyond a +15 also, maybe not loot as that would imbalance the game, but reward with re-roll tokens or something more useful yet worthwhile.

15) Raid trash. Once a raid is cleared 5 times, allow for trash to be turned off. I mean, do we need to keep wasting our time doing it? Honestly, at this point, there should be 1 trash pull before a boss and that is it. Trash in raid = NOT fun.

16) Get rid of LFR. 4 levels for a raid is ridiculous. I say make two raids every tier. One is N and H, the other is H and M. Oh, the people doing N can't do the H/M raid? Get in a guild and get good or go play a new game. Stop crying, l2play, or go play Candy Crush. The noobs and shitters and whiners that the game was too hard made Greg Street leave Blizz, now I want you all to leave or re-roll on Azralon.

17) All Portugese speaking servers should be grouped and NOT allowed to co-mingle with US servers. ENOUGH, stop it...I do not want to pug with them anymore. I know some are good, but most that pug SUCK. Oh and I cannot f'ing understand them nor them me!

18) Quality of life change. Gold should be server-wide. Why do I need to swap to different toons on same server to transfer gold? Dumb. Fix it and let us rejoice and sing your praises...naked.

19) Auto-ban anyone that uses the word RIP in game. It's as bad as people sill saying “LEEROOY”. Ban them both for 1 week, if continued, perma-ban and send them a link to candy crush. What? You do not like that? Too bad and get off my lawn!

20) Only allow people that have topped AND bottomed into raid groups.

21) Stop with the Vanilla WOW server. What a waste of time and effort and money. Give us more content not recycle the shit that sucked back then. The trend will be near comical as month 1 there will be millions of new people, month 2, a drop of 90% when they realize, YES, it sucked, but it was ALL we knew back then.

I am sure there are more and I will add to this list. Share your thoughts. I am sure Blizzard doesn't really care what I say, but it felt good to get it on paper.

Always Yours,

Mav

The New Crew

THE NEW CREW

THE RETURN

Maybe it is apropos that my last blog post was called the Return of  the Mavris (os)? So, I am back at it both in the form of a blog post and in WOW!  The addiction that I kicked for 3 years has me back hook, line, and sinker!  After 3 years of NOT raiding in progressive content, I felt a bit like an outsider in my own guild.  I should put the word ‘own’ in quotes as I basically relinquished any leadership duties and status when I stopped playing for this long stretch; the longest break I have ever taken from WOW to date. 

I now have a steady girlfriend, who is very busy with work during the week which means, plenty of time for WOW for me! 

WHO THE F AM I?

So, who is this Mav dude right?  I bet my old blog entries explain most of it and I won’t even hyperlink them as I cannot even remember which ones told which stories, plus everyone should read them all anyway.  J  I will do an update of who I am though and what I was doing in my 2-3 year hiatus besides cursing as the terrible execution of the xpac WOD.  In a nutshell though, I have been in Broken a long time (since BC), at some point I became an Officer, then official Raid Leader, then CO-GL.  Then a long break and I was never removed from guild nor by rank.  I thank my buddy, my pal, my confidant Bloodrooted for retaining hope I would return one day.  I can honestly say it has been both fun and challenging meeting all the new members of Broken.  Many old personalities are gone and I miss many of them, some not so much, like Waldo and Libentina and Misantropik and Bukklao, the list goes on and on.  I dearly miss my friend Vapes who has not made a reappearance.  I hold out hope for that Aussie bastard to return, but I fear his wife has cut his nuts off and stuck them on the barbie.  I am really glad to see a few of my old buddies from ~10 years ago here in Wornight , Stranglehorn, and Ishen.  It warms the cockles of my heart and the shorn skin of my testes to see and play with them again.  Speaking of shorn scrotums, I do hope you gentlemen of Broken do trim your nether areas for your ladies….

At this point, I feel that I have a good understanding of most of the folks in our raid/guild group so I will do what I do best…..blog and pontificate and over exaggerate on some of our beloved guildies…

Also, I poop myself sometimes.  Don’t judge and do not pretend it has not happened to you.  Poop, it happens..

THE PLAYERS

DISCLAIMER:  No offense should be taken to anything and everything I say.  Also, forgive me if I do not write about you, I just do not know enough about you to write about……yet……give me time.

Who do I start with????  In no specific order…..

Rex – Jack of all trades and master of all.  First of all, Rex gets it.  All his toons start with “Rex” so he is forever ‘Rex’ and we all know his alts just by the virtue of him logging on.  Yours truly started this trend many years ago but didn’t get the proper credit.  ;)  Seriously though, why doesn’t everyone do that?  Val is no longer Selv, he is Val.  I mean, I would get confused if one week I was Mavros* then the next tier or xpac I was called SuttSutt, you know?  Anyway, back to Rex.  I don’t want to overinflate his head, but this dude can play anything.  I feel like he should be writing How-To books.  101 ways to do XYZ.  101 Ways to Play a Druid.  101 Ways to Properly Berate your Tank in raid and 5 mans.  101 Sexual Positions with full diagrams!  Did I go too far?  Always… Beware though!  He can get salty! 

Bigg – Formerly known as Jak, he is now Bigg (yes 2 gg’s, seems apropos for WOW)  I think he finally settled on a main toon after mage, hunter, warrior, and now DH experiments.  If not, we may tell Rex to berate him more and we all send him DP’s.  Bigg has shown some great commitment to the spec and the guild as of late.  WTF, I am inflating everyone’s head so far!  Don’t worry, Val’s writeup is coming.  As a newly inked official tank of Broken (applause for Bigg) to be paired with the talented Dr. Truf, Bigg has stepped up to help Broken in recruitment and running M+ guild groups.  I can’t lie, I do wonder, is he indeed, “big” or he is overcompensating.  Time will tell…. 

Val – aka Mr. Wet Suit.  After I posted a picture of myself and GF Mavros, he proceeded to one up me with a picture of his wife and himself in wet suits.  What should have been considered fun and provocative, the wet suit hugged at his ball and taint area so snuggly that I did not sleep for 2 nights.  Val is half a ninja.  One minute he is in game, the next he is gone without a trace.  It finally makes sense why he wanted to main switch to rogue.  I suspect he wishes he could stealth while playing WOW so his better half couldn’t see him.  Just my opinion.  So, Val can be summed up like this:

                Raid Leader:  Ok, ready check.  Uhm, where did Val go??

                Raid:  He left, he said, “sorry g2g and logged”

                Raid Leader: WTF???

                Val Friend:  I got a text, his roof is leaking. 

    Raid: Probably his eyes watering when his wife punched him in the stomach for playing           WOW rather than rubbing her bunions.

    Raid Leader:  Sigh, let’s just go.

    <BOSS DIES!!  CHEERS!>

    Val:  I am back!  What did I miss?

    Raid:  /facepalm

               

Whapa – Every time he logs on I want to yell WHEEEEEPAAAA!!!  A solid hybrid player that is pretty quiet, but I am pretty sure he eats at Burger King regularly.  Get it?? Just like, “That squirrel Invasion was Nuts, get it??”   It really is a-corny joke.  ;)  Do I need to say something positive about everything since it is 2017 and everyone has feelings?  Well, I do wish Whapa was around more, I think he has the mojo.  I do think every time a new boss dies he should scream WHEEPA over discord.

Sins – I do not even know the name of his shaman.  It really is a silly name, you know what, no, it’s a flat out dumb name and not one person knows it nor calls him by it.  We should start a petition to get him to change it to Sins or a variation of Sins.  To me and I think all of us, Sins is forever Sins and forever a Pally in my mind, heart, and soul.  I feel at night while he dreams, he is haunted by Divine Storms and Hammers of Justice and Lay on Hands (that are Blood’s).  Relatively quiet, mostly wants serious business and extreme focus, and oftentimes grumpy and ornery.  (we hear he is getting married soon….lucky girl…..ugh)  I still remember interviewing him a long time ago and he was so….……”out of it” that he doesn’t even remember it.  Even after all of this, the guy knows how to DPS and even more importantly, he knows who to blame if his dps is not high or the highest on a certain fight.  No one is safe from Sins if he is not #1 on the meters.  Interesting fact, he raids listening to OH CANADA! while draped in the Canadian flag.  See below:

Denny – Very new to Broken, but another excellent player (and another meter maid!).  Him and Sins compare d*ck sizes on every fight.  It typically sounds like this, “Dude, I procced 453 times and you procced 789 times, that is the only reason you beat me!  Unzip pants…look how big it is!”  We all tune them out as they size each other up both playing the OP enhancement shaman class.  Way to pick the OP dps class and then brag how good you are, that is like telling someone you have the biggest weiner after you got penile growth surgery.  (again, do not judge)  All in all, I like Denny, he has a great sense of humor and in his free time he creeps on people from his car in school parking lots while gaming.  I mean, what is not there to like? 

Mal – Your friendly neighborhood shadow priest that sometimes S2M’s a bit early.  Here is an example:

RANDOM BOSS FIGHT

Mal – Uh, guys, I am dead…

Raid – Rez MAL!

Mal – I cannot be rezzed….

Raid – Uh, Mal, the boss is at 80%....

Mal – I surrendered too early….

Raid - /facepalm

He is my competition for highest M+.  I liked him a lot more until he got a +12 and I have not completed a +12 yet.  Mal is a guy that is around and available and always willing to get sh*t done.  I like people like Mal.  Good addition to Broken.

Eternalrest – ET for short.  I recently found out his toon in WOD was Shiftie, I heard about some dude named Shiftie in my MIA days during WOD, but did not make the connection until recently.  There were “stories”, but of course I barely recall anything now, I blame liquor.  ET I feel like was first everything in Broken when Legion began.  First to max a Demon Hunter, top guild iLevel, top guild DPS, top played time for Legion, most legendaries, fastest to level professions, etc.  When ET puts his mind and fingers to it, he gets it done!  However, there is an awesome metamorphosis (get it?) that does take place as the raid night gets later and later.  I am not sure if he dips into some booze or other indulgences, but he starts busting chops on everyone and lays fire to people.  No one is safe when he transforms into this beast!  It is really funny though and I always look forward to the next transformation! 

Ent – I do not even know his full toon name, I think it is a play on matador or troubadour.  He is another that I sing a jingle to when he logs in.  “You down with E-N-T, YEAH, you know me!”  Crazy shit like that always comes to my head, not sure why.  Could be the booze.  Anyway, ENT has an awesome sense of humor.  You cannot help to laugh when he talks or chimes in on something.  Always poignant and funny and this Spanish cat (I think he is of Spanish decent) can fing heal!  My goal is to beat ENT on meters, but we don’t compare d*ck sizes like the male enhancement shaman (get it?) players in Broken.  He has been gone for awhile, we are worried, we hope he comes back, I miss me some ENT. 

Vexyr/Nerghal – Why lump the locks together?  Because all locks look alike that is why!  It is also because to me, right now, I have not had enough 1 on 1 time with either and both to write up separate personas for each.  Give it time!  They jump in raid, do what locks do best, mid-range dps with talks that next tier will be the best one for spec X and they will top meter like in BC, but the reality is, they only get invited to raid for cookies and summons portals, right?  Poor locks, I do sympathize though, I was a lock as my first toon ever in Vanilla (Mavrosdeath).  I miss dpsing.  There would be much satisfaction in beating Sins on the meters on some fights.  I encourage you all to berate him if you do.

Dam – New hunter in guild, he is cool, a true pugmaster, it is even on his resume.  “I pug therefore I am, so hire me bitch!”  Pugs more than me which is saying a lot!

Theo – Most even tempered, happy go lucky guy I ever met in game.  I wish Theo was my neighbor because currently I want to sh*t in my neighbor’s lawn and on the hood of his car and in his mouth.  Oops, sidetracked, retracting that anger!  Theo is the type of raider that would get the participation award after every tier.  He is there, does his business, doesn’t complain, does the jobs no one else wants to do, but isn’t the key reason the team won yet has value.  Do not get me wrong though, Theo isn’t a noob or just there, he does theorycraft and compares notes with Val.  I will give you the special sauce Theo…raid in a wet suit and win and link logs in guild chat.

Bristol – Bristol is the guy I want to be my neighbor opposite of Theo!  Fellow healer and the man with the feasts.  Hard to find a nicer guy.  Waiting to see his dark side still…

Trem/Huggabull – He makes flasks for me then doesn’t log into game for weeks at a time until I need more.  ;)  I think I still owe him mats or gold or a handie.  Your choice Trem!
Nice part of his entry=Very helpful guy!

Kaizr -  I mean is it not obvious?  When he logs in, there he is, the elusive Kaizr Soze!  Still getting to know this quiet hunter.  I am half expecting him to just speak in only Usual Suspects quotes.  I am cautious though of Kaizer.  Never forget, “I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him.' Well, I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze”.

Kualija – I still do not know how her toon name is pronounced.  I always think of “Calogero” from Bronx tale for some reason as the proper proununciation.  Anyway, Kua is good people that helps when needed. 

Tok – Another fellow healer, glad to see him return as the healing stable currently looks like one horse standing around named Ishen and another healer Mav trying to milk it hoping more healers pop out out.  Does that imagery even make sense?

Uproot – Limited time with the Root.  “Let’s get to the ROOT of the problem  --2nd boss DHT emote).  Talented player and tank and was similar to ET on doing so many things first in Legion within Broken, but that voice…  I had him record for me while reading a raid strat and I play it back when I cannot sleep!  He is on break, we hope to see him again. 

Freggos – Freggo my Eggo!!  YES, I said it first and thought of it first.  All others owe me royalties!  In MOP, I nicknamed my spell on my Holy Paladin when I met Freggos to Lay on Freggos.  I think he secretly wants to tank or is jealous of all the attention his wife gets as a tank so he pulls aggro or tries to die.  I don’t know, but I do know I no longer have a holy pally, but my battle rez is especially reserved for my main man here!  So, if I am slow to brez you or do not do it at all, it is because it is reserved for Freggos!  Much love though, he sends me beer packages from Oklahoma.  Yes, Oklahoma, people DO live there AND on purpose.

Truf – Another toon that I barely know her real toon name.  I think someone called her truffle shuffle once and that was it, forever, like being a Goonie, it is forever!  So, Truf, she is a RL Doctor by degree, but in my mind she just digs up stuff of stuff we know already existed.  It’s like raiding Dragon Soul now and saying, OMG, look, it is Deathwing!  He WAS real.  Much love here too, Freggos and Truf are two people I have raided with for a long time…..

Wornight – Believe it or not, this corny joked DK was once an officer of Broken.  One too many bad jokes though and he had to be removed.  I am glad to see Wornight back in the saddle with Broken.  Always breaking the silence and wind with some awful, terrible, juvenile, worst jokes of all time.  If you think he is being serious for even 5 minutes, he is trolling you.  On a side note, he gets it too!  His toons are Worloch, Wordin, and Wornight.  We don’t call him Wor though.  Maybe he doesn’t get it afterall.  I retract all I just said.

Stranglehorn – I worked hard to get Horn to return to WOW and Broken in WOD due to flexible raids, then I left the game.  Sorry Horn!  He is also an ex-officer of Broken, but moved on to go hardcore porn raiding.  After that hardcore fun, he returned to the “this is 40” raiding and WOW life.  I missed Horn while he was gone and I was still in game.  I have shared a lot with him over the years.  There is one thing though that is always the same with Horn, he ALWAYS plays feral.  This conversation below is 100% true.

                Me:  Horn, what class and spec this xpac?

                Horn:  Druid and Feral.

    Me:  Dude, did you see it’s the most complicated rotation ever in history of wow?  Like 45       abilities and 63 CDs and a roar to keep up while DOING all those abilities and managing         CDs?!

                Horn: Yes I did, Druid and feral

    Me (next tier):  HORN!?  Holy crap, they are nerfing feral to be the lowest dps!  Like lower     than elemental shamans!  What are you going to do???

                Horn: Yes I am aware, Druid and Feral.

Got to love a man that knows what he wants and what he is.  He did tell me once, he looks like a bear in RL.  I guess it makes sense then.  Thankfully, I do not look like a troll or a tree in RL, but then again, my ex-wife may disagree…

Ishin – Holy fing crap!  You all may or may not know the old Ishin (yes, with an I!).  He was the crankiest most sarcastic SOB in the history of wow ever!  It truly is a miracle how he has changed to me at least.  The irony is, when we recruited him in BC he was a Resto Druid and I was a Holy Priest and now look????  I know, it isn’t that cool to you guys, but healers need something to get giddy or nostalgic over rather than meter maiding and comparing d*ick sizes!  Now fellow healers once again and fellow leaders of Broken.  A moment that can only be appreciated with a proper /touchballs.  Seeing eye to eye with Ish is probably best though, we do not want to see the old Ish re-emerge!  I mean he used to be called Bitchin Ishin for a reason.  The legend goes that at least 15 people have gquit Broken due to Ish’s past passive aggressive words in guild chat.

Blood – I mean, I wrote a whole blog post about Blood!  The Bromance.  What is there left to say? We talk on the phone about life, liberty, love, children, sexual positions, pooping, the pursuit of happiness, and Broken.  So, what is so weird about that, right?  Actually, we talk about all of you!  
Ok, just kidding, just Val mainly.   I am glad he kept it all together and even promoted a few people like Sins (for whatever reason) and Freggos to Sergeant and obviously Ish to Officer. 

CONCLUSION - ALL LOVE

So, there it is….more eventually as I get to know others and new folks that come along.  It is an honor to share this guild and game with you all.  Second disclaimer, all contents in here are for an attempt at humor and to build a sort of history for Broken through blogging.   Now back to your regularly televised show…Gilmore Girls (Bigg’s favorite btw!).

-Mav

The Return of the Mavri (os)?

INTRO

With the impending new Stars Wars movie, which I am reluctant to get excited about after the “first” three were so sub-par that I can still taste the poo in my mouth when I think about them.  Jar-jar and the awful skywalker casting killed them both for me.  So, perhaps the title of this blog post is a bit of a stretch, but I was motivated by a few things:

1)      The new SW movie (obviously, although the title of my blog DOES refer back to a film that featured Muppets as characters…) 

2)      News from Blizzcon 15

3)      Taki’s wiener sexts to me

4)      Seeing a picture of Ish on FB and furiously masturbated to it

5)      Elements of the new xpac Legion are intriguing

6)      Elements of the new xpac Legion are NOT intriguing

7)      I listened to my raid leading on H Impregnator in whatever raid that was and got a woody

8)      I miss you guys, well, some of you guys

JUST THE 2 OF US

Accidents will and can happen.  Before I dive too deep into a WOW tirade, I had an accident recently that I wanted to share with my loyal readers.  This particular accident happened while I was vacationing in San Diego with who I will refer to as Mistress Mavros.  

DISCLAIMER:  If you are faint of heart please skip to the next section of this blog post.  (Seriously though, you know it has happened to you too, so be real to yourself and everyone around you and read this)

For those unaware, I tore my ACL in early August playing beach volleyball.  I had reconstructive knee surgery in early September and by the time myself and Mistress Mavros went to SD, I was at the point of needing to do some of my own strengthening exercises.  

So, the first morning after having awesome Mexican food for dinner the night before, I decided to goto the little makeshift gym at the resort we were staying at to ride the stationary bike.  Mistress Mav was going to read a book on the balcony while I exercised.  I planned on a 45 minute ride, but at the 20 minute mark, the stool must have worked itself closer to the sphincter than I thought with all the rotating movement.  I guess I loosened it up a little bit.  Being accident free for about 63 days (yes, I got a coin for it too), I was sure this was not an emergency to get my bloomers in a bunch for.  Anyway, a little gas and a little tummy gurgling later and I figured I could finish the ride and be safe.  Well, within the next 5 minutes, the pressure built up and was just too great.   I quickly sat up in astonishment and started fast walking to the room praying I would make it in time.  Whatever the case was, perhaps the sweat that lubed up my sphincter or just the sheer amount of food that needed to evacuate, “it” started to come out, there was no holding it back.  I still had 200 yards or so to go and some of it was in my underwear.  I began sweating even more than I already was and could feel the slushing and smearing happening in my underpants.  (Boxer briefs to be exact)  I see her on the balcony still, phew, and bolt into the bathroom and lock the door.  I sit on the bowl quickly to evacuate the rest of the stool and look down and see nothing short of a crime scene in my underpants.  Even my balls got infected by the splatter.  I do my business and when I get up, I just see poo all over the seat, and some even traversed onto my leg.  It was a truly a mess!  I grab a hand towel and soap it up and quickly clean the toilet seat to ensure no staining occurs.  I soap it up good and clean it off and even do a sniff test to make sure it does not smell.  I then undress and toss away my underpants and shorts in the waste basket which had a bag in it.  I close that bag up and quickly dive in the shower and clean off my rear end.  Yet another gross scene as some “stuff” was still in there and rinsed down the drain as it plopped down from my backside.  I then spayed cologne in the bathroom to cover the horrific smell of digested Mexican food.  I grabbed the evidence bag and shuffled outside to look for an outdoor garbage.  I spot a cart that one of the cleaning people use and there was a garbage receptacle on that. I had no choice and went for it.  The cleaning person must have been in a room cleaning so I stealthed my way to it and dropped the bag in it and dashed out of there.  I then went back to the gym and finished my 20 minutes on the bike.  Mistress Mavros did not discover the true nature of this event, but merely thought I was just using the bathroom.  No more accidents on vacation occurred as I was more careful to go as soon as the sensation was felt rather than risk it all over again.  Morale of the story?  Never play Russian Roulette with your an#s.

Hello, are you still here?

GREAT! 

Now about LEGION!!!!

LEGION

WAHOO!!  Another old boss resurrected to bring back the wow gamers?  I don’t even know and most know I don’t care about lore, but is it so hard to create new stories?  Do we really need to go back in time and re-fight the villains from the past?  I digress, I was SUPER fing excited for Warlords.  I think elements of it I liked and other things I disliked immensely.  Hmm, let’s go through them since we have some time.

Shit I hated:

1)       Leveling.  Same grind, different xpac.  BLIZ, I don’t give a shit HOW beautiful the new world is, I hate it all, just get me to max level with either $$ or with 5 mans or some other way rather than collecting 10 douches and then going back to kill the douche boss for him to drop his vial of vinegar to return to some peon in town that claims the world will end if we do not.

2)      5 mans.  Make them better or more epic or something.

3)      The People’s legendary.  Stop it.  We don’t ALL need legendaries.  The grind for them sucks and forces us to do LFR which would PROMISED we wouldn’t have to do.  You lied!  Also, we cannot change mains because then we are too far behind OR we can do even MORE LFR and grinding…YEAH! 

4)      Mythic.  Stop it already, make it flexible at ALL levels.  Sorry if the top 1% do not like this, they can go fly a fing kite with my poo on it.  Make all raiding flexible AND cross realm.  There, problem fixed, pay me.

5)      The garrison – seriously, worse than old school dailies.  Fun and col for about for 5 minutes.

6)      SPREAD THE FING RAIDS OUT MORE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU KNOW YOU WILL have a last tier for 1+ year! 

7)      4 piece bonuses.  Enough already change these or make them selectable.  I don’t know, they feel like feast or famine.  Shit like, “My toon will suck until I get 4 piece” is not good.

8)      Too many raid tiers.  Get rid of Normal mode.  It is the old flexible mode, but now that Heroic is flexible why bother with N mode?  Make Mythic flexible and this is perfect.  AND Heroic raiders should never want or need to do LFR.  Doing the same boss on LFR, N, then H and maybe Mythic is nothing short of ridiculous.

9)      Healer disparity.  Fix the damn mitigation healers already.

10)   There is more, but I am not a hater.  ;)

Shit I liked:

1)      Flexible raiding, see above though

2)      The quality of life changes with bag space was all good stuff and the other things I am forgetting.

3)      Overall the raid bosses I did on Heroic felt ok to me.  Hellfire Citadel had a few in the beginning which were straight dumb.  The assault and reaver garbage.  Overall though, not too bad. 

4)      The gear sharing between specs is a good change.  Do not need to build completely different gear sets for alternate specs, just a few pieces. 

5)      I am sure there is more, but I forget which is probably not a good thing.

Legion.  Right.  Sorry for the tangent.  

Legion Raiding

So, Mythic will STILL not be flexible and STILL not be cross realm.  (only cross realm mythic UNTIL legion).  Ugh. 

Talents

I hear about these all new talent systems or talents, which sounds exciting, time will tell. 

Artifact Weapons

New artifact weapons.  Great, THE new version of people’s legendaries.  So, again, swapping alts, not really an option once you get into the thick of things.  New class. Demon Hunter, early reports say, best class ever.  Uhh great, why not fix the ones we have now??  Also, why not add a 3^rd spec to be ranged if there is insistence on the DH class??   

More than just 2 specs

One good thing I heard/read, multiple specs, not just 2 anymore.  3 or maybe even 4 for druids since they can have 4 specs.  So, you can have all saved and swap between them if necessary.  The bad?  Fights might be SO theroycrafted now that you need to change DPS specs between each boss.  That ruins the “fun” aspect blizz was going for when they removed reforging, etc.

5 Mans

This sounds cool so far.  Can keep ramping up the difficulty ala Diablo to make 5 mans harder and harder and get some ilevel gear as raiding.  Sounds good, but not sure it’s the best approach.  Also, will tier and trink pieces be available?  I am guessing no.  I guess pre-raid gear will be attained in the highest 5 man possible and then you go into raid to get trinks and tier gear.  This is my guess.  I am ok after further thought.  It DOES allow a new main to get geared at same ilevel sans trinks and tier pieces and maybe get into a raid sooner than later if your first main was not fun for you or sucked.

Leveling

Start leveling in any zone and it will scale to your current level.  I guess that is fine, but it is still going to be a QUEST grind to get there.  I guess two different level toons could level in a new area and then whatever math/algorithm can make the xp split.  Again, not even sure this will work or even matters much.  For those that still claim they love to level, I fart in your general direction…  I seriously would rather PVP for 20 hours then level for 20 hours.

Healer Changes

As a healer, I like what I read about the healer changes specifically the disco priest.  We shall see how the synergy with some of the stuff I am reading plays out.

That it? 

I think there is plenty more to discuss about Legion, but it is all I can recall for now.

WOW IPs

Blizzard has greatly expanded its brand and now the multitude of IPs is crazy.  I have played them all to an extent, but none as much as WOW and Diablo. (Unless you include old school Warcraft, I would LOVE a Warcraft 4 RTS!!)  Even still, I feel WOW is and always will be my favorite game within the IP list.  Yeah, I am sure OW will be good, but I hate FPS and most 10 year olds are better than all of us.  Hearthstone, I just can’t get into it, I just do not care enough.  Heroes of the Storm, fun for a match or two, then boring again.  Starcraft I love until the campaign is over, then that is it for me.  Diablo changes were good in S4, but too easy to gear and then the lag/monk OPness made it less fun.  2.4 may get me back a little. I just hate the current best Wizard spec (Vyrs) and I am a Wizard at heart.

MY RETURN?

Do you even care?  Do people reading this even know me?  The guy that always touted being around since Vanilla and would probably always be around, but has not played in 8+ months?  I stopped playing for a number of reasons one being I was dating and work, but now I have a mistress. (Although work is still a bit messy, long story…) I told her about my gaming, but I also told her I quit.  It has not come up in a while though, but there were a few times when she called me and I was playing SC and she knew I was not paying attention to her.  No, she doesn’t play WOW or any game and she would probably suck at it.  She is pretty good at scissoring though.  

Maybe some of you miss my stories of poo, sex, dating, beer, wine, liquor, the feel of Blood’s taint on my cheek, etc.  Maybe some hated those stories and antics.  Whatever it was, I am just not sure.  I am not seeing enough changes to MAKE me want to plunge back in, but Legion may not be out until July/August.  I am guessing a few weeks after the movie comes out.  Oh, yeah, speaking of that, the movie trailer is NOT epic.  It is sort of weird with a lot of catch phrases like, “we must kill the ORCS, ARGH!”, then a fight scene then, an orc saying, “We must decimate the HUMANS, ARGH!”  Will I see it?  Of course, but do not tell me it was epic or whatever the new hipster word for epic is.  Remember when the word for epic was “word”?  Or “dope”.  We are a moronic society, aren’t we? 

I would say you will have a Mavros sighting in Legion, but in raid?  Still TBD.  Anyway, I miss you all.

/touchballs

-Mav

The Bromance

Intro

A long overdue post and I am dreadfully overdue on a blog entry in general.  So, WOW hit its 10 year anniversary and I have been in the thick of things for that entire time.  Some of the current guildies in Broken were single digits in age when WOW came out!  It is quite scary and a true mind F to us older folks that are past or approaching….<gulp>.…40 .  Let me digress…. 

My subject today is one of romance, friendship, and love.  Over the course of my WOW career, I documented much of my WOW life here in The History Lesson, but there is one man, one constant, one partner who deserves mention as he is not just a wow buddy/guildie, but a true friend...

Say My Name

His name is none other than Rakrah!  Without his overwhelming tanking skills and amazing leadership I would not be the man I am today.  Ok,ok,ok.  Enough!  We all know my love affair with Rakrah.  The real guy I am talking about is none other than the chain smoking, beer drinking, dirty minded, unconventional Greek fool named Taki aka Photia/Porkofdoom/Bloodrooted. 

History

As a quick recap to some of the history, he used to be a mage as his main toon in the TBC days.  Even then he had tanking tendencies as he did mage tank the first boss in Gruul’s cave.  Over time and as the guild needed consistent and not flakey tanks and healers, the group of us officers all decided to take on the roles of tanks/healers as they formed the glue of most raids and guilds.  The always fierce Photia the mage was retired for Porkofdoom the warm and fuzzy bear tank for whom I healed through many a boss fights as I stared at his large furry arse.  I went from a TOP dpsing lock (yes, TOP DPS!) to a holy priest healer (and ultimately disco) and pally healer.  Chris (wornight to you all now, went to wordin a ret pally/prot pally), Frayae was our pally healer, and Stranglehorn was our kitty dps with a bear tank offspec.  This way our 2 tanks and 2 main healers were all officers and less of flight risk.  Fray did end up bailing on us over time, but we survived until the time near the end of cata and The Experiment came to be when we left guild management until Broken’s rebirth.

Taki the Man

Over time and all the years as we became co-GL of the reborn Broken, Taki and I have grown closer in many ways (fill in your own blanks you pervs).    WOW discussions, guild decisions, personnel talks, raid debriefs all were the backdrop to our communication with each other, but it evolved into much more.  Conversations about each other’s kids and family was a natural progression when we communicated for so long and so often.  He knew about my marital problems before anyone else and shielded me when I needed some privacy.  We rant and ravved about ex-girlfriend’s, wives, and ex-guildies.  We talked about our favorite positions and what we drank and what we cooked and what we ate.  I think Taki lives on Chinese food and if I ate as much as of that as he did I’d be permanently on the toilet peeing out of my butt, yet somehow he is immune to its powers against me.  We also waxed poetic over our all guildies, good and bad, old and new.  Skabz, Uz, Vapes, Horn, Wordin (though he is back), Rakrah (always), Waldo (not much more comedic value than waldo), Brawnie, Thoradil, Sunny (AFK grandma), Fray, current raiders and guildies, Team Moist, Kimmie, Yanni, Lani, G, James, the list goes on and on.  (if you were not mentioned, suck it up and submit a ticket to blizz and if you are current then you already know we are talking about you, so take solace in that)

Ying and Yang

Contrary to popular belief (I might have made this up), we do not always see eye to eye.  Sometimes it is more like brown eye to finger.  ATM anyone?  (if some of this entry is not filthy it would not do Taki justice).  Even still, we always compromise and hear each other’s opinion and side and try and make the right decisions for the guild and stay away from being too short sighted. 

We attempt to keep raiding fun and loose and Taki certainly adds his elements of filth to the raid while I try and do other things like DIAF (there I said it for you jerks out there), but I am in The Decay.  I swear I think he raids in a dirty clown costume and sucks on lollipops.  We try and be each other’s ying and yang and bring out everyone’s personality and voice unless they are dbags or weird (insert name of a raider that was also the name of a cheese).  We may even good cop bad cop you in vent or one on one or we may just go DP on you.  ;)  With each new day brings a different approach.  We play off of each other as best we can, but it is natural, it is not pre-determined nor do we discuss it, we just know each other.  We know each other’s mood, vibe, swagger, voice, O face, and cadence.

The Meeting

So, there happened to be one moment in our lives where we could cross paths without much consternation as we were both busy with family and kids, etc.  I was in the Boston area and was set to meet up with Kimmie, Yanni (Taki’s younger brother), Brulador, and Cali out for a few beers.  I text Taki to make a showing, but he wasn’t sure.  Once I got to the bar and met all of the above, I texted Taki and he said he would make an appearance.  I’ll admit, I did pop a little bit of wood.

First, I had time to digest the likes of Kimmie, an entirely different person IRL than in game!  Much quieter in real life.  Yanni, when Paul Bunyan starts eating gyros this is what reminds me of Yanni.  He was exactly as I envisioned him.  Angry, hairy, big, loud, and brash.  I hear he is tamer now with a beautiful newly born daughter (congratulations Yanni and Kimmie), but I will never forget the lumberjack I met that night and I laughed with him plenty.  A solid guy nonetheless who you always want in your corner and hopefully wearing his mp5 set, but he loves to complain and be cranky, no different than in his WOW days. 

The Arrival

Taki lived about 45 mins from the bar so with my anticipation (and weiner) grew for this guy I had spoken to for years and never had met.  I knew Yanni was the giant of the family and I am also 6’4” and I knew Taki was shorter, but size matters little (sometimes ;) )  He approached the table very stealthily (for the record, he never played a filthy rogue) and I think I yelled his name and stood up and we hugged like we were long lost war buddies.  It was then I swear I felt a hand on my arse.  Not sure if it was Kimmie or Yanni or just the ODB himself….Taki.  There was no awkwardness or anything.  We sat down next to each other playing footsies and rubbing each other’s thighs.  We even had to check each other’s sacks to make sure we both still had a set and were ready to lead again together.  To be honest, his were way hairier.  (male tip of the day:  trim that stuff, trust me, girls don’t want a rats nest down there)  Neither of us was very different in personality IRL then on the phone or in game.  We talked and traded stories for hours.  Once he got there our focus was on each other, but we all chatted around the table.  I cannot recall all we talked about and the night flew by and I could not stay out that late as I had to get back to the person’s house I was staying at.  He did even invite his friend and an old guildie named G (Raininblood) to come out too and he did.  So, that was great fun as well.  The hours passed, the beers flowed, the weiners were no longer flaccid, but it was time to call it a night.  I said good night to everyone and gave Taki another big hug, we definitely rubbed balls and grabbed arses and said we should do it again soon. 

Epilogue

It was been the roughest 18 months of my life for those that sort of know all I have been through (and many don’t know the half of it).  I was nearly married to this game and I did step away prior to WOD for 4 months and even now that I am back am admittedly NOT as engaged and as razor sharp as I once was.  I have a lot of loose ends and moving parts in my life right now and the equilibrium is still working itself out.  This isn’t meant for a pity party or as some precursor to me quitting (I am not), but to again show an example of the man Taki is.  He has stepped into a bigger role and is carrying the weight I cannot carry right now for the guild when he also has a full plate IRL.  I was RLing two teams most of MoP and always came razor focused and was always overly prepped.  I have slipped a little, but Taki has caught me most times (sometimes he watches me fall and laughs) so I did not fall flat on my face.  I should give some credit to our current guildies too as some of them have helped me and the guild a lot as well.  Being a single dad, trying to date (The Date), having a new job with more responsibility, the remainder of my loose ends after this 18 month period, and being a co-GL/RL has proven to be a lot to juggle.  Life has become more of a juggling act for me now and I am adjusting to it, but people like Taki have made it easier just by listening and helping where they can and taking some of the burden off my shoulders.  So, I raise a glass to you my co-GL, my guildie, my WOW compatriot, my buddy, my pal, my friend….we shall meet again soon.

/touchballs

-Mav