Castsequence Random

I was going to post something really ranty and negative about the whole Elephant of DPS is easy.  After I'd written it though, I decided it was not worthy of posting.  Believe it or not, that doesn't often happen for me.  When blogging, I'm pretty much a stream-of-consciousness writer.  A lot of times I'll do research and grab links and what not, but for the most part, what you get is me sitting down for a half hour and pounding something out that's on my mind.  I also write fiction on the side, and that process is totally different.  I'd like all the extra time and thought makes my "serious" fiction better than my IC Friday posts, but there are definitely times when I feel like all the time spent editing is a waste, because just writing roughly isn't always a bad thing.

Writer's Corner aside, I didn't want to completely scrap all of what I'd done, plus I have a few other random thoughts bumping around that aren't really worthy of a full post of their own... so today is going to be a bit random.  So, in the form of a list, here are my random thoughts.  Make of them what you will.

• We took a group into Nexus last night.  We ran with four DPS and a tank.  No healer, No problems.  Healing must be easy mode (/sarcasm).
• The most important part of any group in any game is what we, as players, make of it.
• In the world of MMOs, diversity is King.  Sure you can do stuff with all one type of player/class, but the games are designed with teamwork in mind.  Good teamwork will always make things easier.  That, and uber gear.
• Couldn't the reason there are more DPS than tanks simply be because that is how the game is designed?  Let's look at it this way: pretend each class has three spec trees and each spec tree represents one role.  (In other words, ignore any "extra" specs, no matter how viable to cap each class at three possible spec roles).  In that case there would be four tanking trees, five healing trees, and twenty-one DPS trees.  That means there is slightly more than a 4:1 ratio of types of DPS compared to types of tanking/healing.  Groups are traditionally 3 DPS, 1 Tank, 1 Healer.  Thus, at best, a 3:1 ratio.  Is it really any wonder we have extra DPS and not tanks and healers?  Couldn't the reason for the perceived shortage of those roles be simply "working as intended"?
• Sort of in support of the above, in Aion it can be tough to find any specific role at various times.  It's as common to see LF tank as LF DPS as LF healer.  The ratio is a bit better, plus the groups are made of 6 people there, which greatly improves the ratio as well.  Maybe it's all just simple math and game design.  Maybe the simple solution isn't to create incentives or change mechanics, but to just add an extra slot in groups.  That would probably require a lot of instance tuning though, or maybe just a huge health buff for baddies across the board?
• I think feelings of stress and responsibility completely depend upon the mechanics of the fight itself.
• If you choose a role, realizing the belief is that it will be more stressful, you shouldn't be rewarded for making a free-will decision.  Also, perception isn't always reality.  Rewarding for reality is one thing, rewarding for perception is quite another.
• As much as I dislike Hunters, a good trapper is still a gem to have in a group.  Similar with a mage who knows wtf they're doing.  Warlocks don't get cool slowing abilities.  Everything's immune to fear.  WTB warlock AoE slow.
• I have respect for good players, not particular roles.  I dislike a bad tank as much as a bad healer as much as a bad DPS.  When I find a good player, I enjoy playing with them, no matter what toon they're on.  Some players may be good only in one role, and that's fine, but the point is that they're a good player at something, the role doesn't really matter.  After all, practice enough at anything and you can eventually become an expert in it.  It's called the 10-year rule of expertise.

Okay, all the above is well and good and contains the basic points I wanted to get across, but the next part is really the part that is going to make this worthy of posting.  Or something like that.   I finally got my first Emblem of Frost upgrade on my warlock: the T10 pants.  I had been rocking the T7.5 pants, and while the hit is totally a waste for me, the remaining stats are worth it on the T10 piece.  Since I'd been anticipating replacing this piece, I hadn't gotten epic gems for it yet.  Now, I'm all epic gemmed out.  What I wanted to share today as a good reference for Affliction Warlocks is how simple your gem choices are.  So this is the useful part of the post.  (I can't like to WoWhead from work, so I'll go back and add that later tonight).


Affliction Warlock Gem Choices

• Red Slot - Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP). 
• Yellow Slot - Rigid King's Amber (20 Hit) until cap, then Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste).
  
• Blue Slot - Purified Dreadstone (12SP/10Spirit)
  
• Meta - Tireless Skyflare Diamond (25SP and run speed inc) or Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (21Crit and 3% Crit Dmg)

That's it.  It's that simple.  Also, this is assuming you are OCD like me and desire to match the colors for the stat bonus.  To be fair, you'd really have to calculate the DPS gain of the stat bonus against the DPS gain of using the correct gem to make the best decision.  I prefer to follow the color pattern though as variety is the spice of life.  If you don't care about colors, go with the +23 Spellpower for everything.