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[1.Local]: What's all that morrowgrain for, anyway?

Lisa Poisso
Updated ·10 min read

Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

You know, Archdruid Fandouche Toolhelm Fandral Staghelm sure does ask for a lot of Morrowgrain ... So what's up with that?

Shade: He constructed a World Tree without the blessing of the dragon flights, causing a tree that is warped and corrupted enough that it's being invaded by harpies, grell and grelkin, and corrupting the furbolgs that are supposed to be living happily on it. A tree that invites the invasion of satyr -- and the satyr are referenced in the War of the Ancients trilogy as being products of Sargeras, warping some dude with a god complex.

Silithus? He defended Silithus once, yes -- and watched his son ripped apart before his eyes in the process. That broke him. He shattered the Sceptre of the Shifting Sands, the key to opening the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, when the dragon flights asked him to keep guard over it in the event that the Qiraj returned. He said he was done with the dragon flights and done with protecting the place.

His last words upon leaving the scene were as follows: "My son's soul will find no comfort in this hollow victory, dragon. I will have him back. Though it takes millennia, I will have my son back!"

You want to know what he's doing with the morrowgrain? He's trying to find a way to use it to bring his son back from the dead. He may have been a "leader" at some point, but after the War of the Shifting Sands, everything -- and I mean everything -- that man does is somehow related to his son's death.

... well, at least, that's what I'm putting my money on.



bob: You want to know what is up with the Morrowgrain? I'll tell you. Two words: Innkeeper Allison. Fandral want to tap that. How else does a level 30 innkeeper get in good with the leader of the Kaldorei?

Zhiva: About morrowgrain. Maybe he is trying to make a concoction to wake Malfurion from his Emerald coma?

adamiani: Morrowgrain is all fine and good, but what's he doing to get our immortality back? The high elves got their Sunwell back -- I'm darned well not going to be outlived by a bunch of mana-sucking Horde-lovers.

How to critique a priest without making him cry
If DPSers are all about DPS, why aren't healers all about HPS? How can guild and raid members evaluate the performance of their healers? Perhaps this rant holds a few indications ...

Broken_toes: Yeah ... I thought I was going to bother reading this. I even said to myself, "Yeah, 'tis might even help my guild in 'getting' healers." But yeah, you know what? NO ONE WANTS TO HEAL!!!! IT'S CRAP!!!!

It's that simple. I've done it on my pally. I can heal up to 25-Uld, I imagine (this is goin' purely by gear), on my pally. But you know what? I WON'T BECAUSE IT BLOWS, AND AT THE END OF THE DAY, I DON'T CARE ENOUGH IF THEY DIE OR NOT!!!

I can't get excited on a raid if healin' gear drops, if I get a new cloak or even a new legendary mace, because healin' blows ass.

It takes a special kind of player to enjoy healing -- on any class. It takes a different kind of person to go from "I want to curse the crap out of people and be all black" to "I want to see what my gear looks like on the crap model of the forsaken -- ye ye ripped pants constantly FTW -- and make sure the tank and DPS take the glory." It takes a special kind of person to actually want to stare at that f'n Grid or whatever add-on they use (because blizz ain't even thought of an attractive option for healing) for however long it takes and keep the raid going. I for one salute that person.

Having to put up with that completely limited playstyle, thinking to yourself "I'M PLAYING PUZZLE PIRATES BUT SH****R" But then OH NO, what happens? The tanks put Onyxia in an amazingly stupid place -- the left-hand whelp cave!!! The DK used Army on the first phase ... All sorts of stupid crap that can happen. (By the way, I DPS Onyxia on my rogue always. I refuse to heal, because I know the stupid amount o' plebes you can get in a PUG and I cannot be frickin' arsed to even try even on our tight 10-man raid run + healing is poop to play.)

You wanna know if your healers good enough?? Seriously?? I'll tell you: IT'S SIMPLE!!

IS HE/SHE WILLING TO PUT UP WITH MUPPETS NOT KNOWING TACTICS?
IS HE/SHE WILLING TO PUT UP WITH PEOPLE LEARNING TACTICS?
IS HE/SHE WILLING TO LEARN TACTICS IF NEED BE?
**** MOST IMPORTANT----- IS HE/SHE WILLING TO ROLL HEALING SPEC KNOWING FULL WELL THAT THEY ARE NEVER GOING BACK TO SHADOW/RETRI/FERAL/ENHANCMENT IN RAID EVER AGAIN?
DID THE RAID/PARTY WIPE DUE TO HEALING?

That's how you know you have a good healer. They're willing to put up with the crap gameplay mechanics (let alone PUGs and frickin' DPS nerd-ragers).

Worship and nurture the guild healers. If they're undergeared, help them gear. If they don't know tactics, run them through them. If they overheal, who frickin' cares unless the raid wipes? If you're that bothered by it, roll a frickin' healer -- notice how much fun it is ...

(This all comes from a raid DPS. NO FRICKIN' WAY AM I HEALIN'. IT'S SH*T AND BORING.)

Bet he felt better after all that, eh? It's ok ... We're a happy-fun bunch here in WoW.com's [1.Local] channel. We'd never stay too dark, too long.

Hansbo: "It never gets dull, does it?"
"Nope."
"Kind of makes you wanna ..."
"Break into song?"
"Yep."

I love the druids
I love the paladins
I love the shamans
And all the priests, too
I love the healing
With all its twists and quirks

Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada
Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada

I love to save you
I love to be valuable
I love to react fast
I love to whack-a-mole
I love the healing
With all its helpfullness

Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada
Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada

I love the yelling
I love to take the blame
I love the feeling
Of being responsible
I love the healing
With all its masochism

Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada
Boom-de-yada Boom-de-yada

One Boss Leaves: King Dred chomps Herald Volazj
What plays out in the comments doesn't always carry over to the vote box in Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves. Another week brings in yet another round of incredulity between supporters of Herald Volazj and fans of King Dred.

Paultab: How is King Dred still winning? Do the people who vote for him still have dinosaur bed sheets and pajamas?

Jonisjalopy: Hey, hey, hey! How DARE you bring my dino sheets into this! They did NOTHING to you!

Patch 3.3 PTR: epic ammo
With craftable epic ammo coming up in Patch 3.3, hunters and engineers have plenty to mull over. Will hunters become engineers? Will the Gnomish engies respec to Goblin? Will Goblin respec Gnomish?

Raze: Oh yeah. Gnomish Engineering. How's that irradiated city working out?

But wait! We've got X-ray goggles! At least the last thing we see is vaguely enjoyable ourselves while our body rots away.

With the sucky semi-IC joking out of the way, it is a little weird that all of a sudden, they think it's a good idea to re-implement the Gnomish/Goblin Engineering split into Wrath, especially when all signs were pointing to the entire idea of profession specialization going the way of dodo in the near future ... and than for something like this. It doesn't even make sense from a lore perspective. Gnomes like arrows, now? Huh?

It's a bad omen. First we get an entire expansion full of gadgets that don't actually ever malfunction, FAR too many Gnome-looking robots, and now being a Goblin Engineer lets me make ... High-end bullets? Pretty lame, Blizzard. Thanks for the Northrend Portal, but bring some slapstick back to Engineering, please.

Mikee: I hope there are more Goblin/Gnome engineering differences coming in Cata. Wrath has been kind of boring for my engineer, who now makes things that every other engineer can make.

Undra: For the hunters that aren't engineers, nothing really changes, except that only certain people will be able to make the right ammo for you. Shadow and Earth are horrendously plentiful from Saronite veins; cost should be a pittance.

For the raiding hunters that are engineers, the hope becomes that the ranged weapons are exact stat clones of each other and that the correct weapon drops for your abilities.

I think splitting ammo by specialization is a bad idea. It makes things more difficult for players. I think if they go ahead with this, they need a way to trade from one to the other, like they did with the Thorium rounds back in Vanilla.

Potential character model revisions ahead in Cataclysm
Would you prefer an updated model for your character, come Cataclysm?

Finnicks: Based on the evidence at hand, I see one of two possibilities:

  • The Plague of Undeath only affected men with identically and abnormally large noses.

  • Identically and abnormally large noses in Azerothian men is a sign of a strong mind and will, which is why only former Azerothian men with identically abnormally large noses freed themselves and became Forsaken.

Undead models are fine, Blizzard. Just give the men different faces. Please?

Arkeband: Undead models are so not fine. Tier 9 gloves currently have half my hand sticking out of them, that's how poor it is. I don't mind the "ragged" look, but the "torn" look is just triangle-chunks, which makes it look like a shark bit our sleeves/pants. I don't think there would be player outrage by changing parts of the player model that are modified by armor, anyway.

Seedcake: At the very least, human males DESPERATELY need an overhaul. If Blizzard would just do this one thing, I might be able to tolerate leveling a character on the blue side. Even just having to *look* at male humans -- at their horrible harelips, their annoying run cycle, even just how they *stand* there looking all strained in the legs like they REALLY need to go to the bathroom all the time -- keeps me from rolling Alliance. Seriously.

(cutaia): Wow ... all this human hate. Am I the only one rolling a human male who didn't realize everyone else thought it was ugly?

Chilblain: Charles Bronson.

We'll be back next week to review another week's worth of insights, opinion, reaction and snark ... Right here on [1.Local].

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