Kor'kron 501st

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. This week’s topic was proposed by Noahdeer of Be MOP.

We all know of the Seven deadly sins (Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony) and we all succumb to aspects of them at one time or another, but is there one particular sin that affects you more than the others when you play World of Warcraft?
Are you a bit too prideful about your armor set? or Do you look upon someone with envy when they have a piece of armor that you don’t have yet?

*This is not suppose to be about the Christian/Catholic religion, more about the vices that we all experience*

Well, I had to go to Wikipedia (on 9/9/12) for this one, I admit. Let’s go through them one by one.

Lust – Wikipedia describes this as “an intense desire” (and not strictly sexual). I suppose at one time I lusted after progression. I was bothered by a lack of progress. We might be more familiar with it as “the hardcore itch.” That itch has passed. While I enjoy making progress, I’m fine as long as we continue.

Gluttony – Described as “the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste.” In WoW terms, the only thing that seems gluttonous is, perhaps, the over-consumption of the game itself. Some people play it non-stop and don’t know what to do when the servers are down. Similarly, they consume all the content and feel lost when there’s nothing to do in the game. I don’t suffer from this.

Greed – Defined as “a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions.” I guess we’d need to define “excessive,” which I’m not really going to attempt. We all want better gear. More than that, I want status symbols in the game – achievements, titles, and especially rare mounts. The game encourages this. I would think acting greedy would be feeling deserving of loot before others. I bet we all feel this sometimes, but maybe you don’t. I have in the past, but I always feel bad when I do. This is much stronger when I’m playing with people I don’t know. When I’m playing with the guild, I want all of us to get rewards. During our first kill in Dragon Soul, Morchok dropped something I could use. It wasn’t a huge upgrade, so I just passed so the other healers could have it. I didn’t say anything, and I don’t know if I ever got that piece later. It didn’t really matter to me. I was feeling pretty geared, so I wanted to let someone else have it.

Sloth – For applications to World of Warcraft, I’ll consider that “Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do.” There have been times when I didn’t have a chance to be as prepared as I could be, but I generally feel like I don’t suffer from this. I bring my flasks, I chip in gold when asked, I get my Valor Points, and I run Looking for Raid. I also think this one can be hard to define. If everyone in your guild expects you to cap your VP and run LFR each week, you should. However, if they don’t expect that, it’s okay if you don’t. We don’t really have requirements in our guild. I think we all owe it to our guildmates to try, but we all have varying amount of free time. Yes, I come gemmed and enchanted!

Wrath – Wrath is “also known as ‘rage’.” This sure seems like me. I can’t think of a recent example, but I can definitely succumb to wrath at times. (Or is this saying that Wrath of the Lich King should be considered a sin? I liked it.)

Envy – Envy is “an insatiable desire.” It consists of a feeling of “discontent towards someones traits, status, abilities, or rewards… the envious also desire that entity and covet it.” The best example is thinking “he only came once and he gets the loot?” Yeah, I’ve felt this previously. I wanted that darn Althor’s Abacus from the gunship battle, and I didn’t like it when other people got it. There are other things I’d really like – Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings, Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest, Tabard of the Lightbringer – but I don’t feel more deserving than someone else. I guess I felt like had we still been raiding with Carpe, maybe Mooglegem would have been working on the staff in Firelands rather than the person who ended up working on it. That was envious, but I also understood perfectly well. We weren’t raiding at the time. It didn’t matter how long we had been raiding with the guild previously. Envy is probably a common and dangerous “sin” in World of Warcraft. I think it’s important to play with people you like. It’s hard to feel bad when you have such great guildmates like I do. And I still think we should go back to Firelands and finish his staff for him!

Pride – Pride, also known as hubris, “is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self.” Yes, I want the cool status symbols. I put on my PVP titles and feel better than the people who don’t PVP. I look at people with the better titles with respect. I want the gear that says I cleared such-and-such. I want the cool mounts. (I love my Ulduar-10 and ICC-25 meta-achievement mounts.) But I wouldn’t say I fail to acknowledge the good work of others. I’m sure there are some raid members that I don’t credit as much as I should, but I know for a fact that we have some truly amazing people on our raid team. I won’t name any names for fear of leaving someone else out. If the people I have in mind are reading this, they probably know I’m talking about them. I love you!

In summary, I think some of these apply to me in varying amounts. I’m greedy in pugs. I can be wrathful sometimes (but I try it hide in game). I’ve been envious, sure, but I don’t think I usually feel like someone else is less deserving Prideful? A bit, but not to the extent of failing to acknowledge others.

Last week’s topic was proposed by Arvash.

In the new Mist of Pandaria expansion, Druids will be getting a new spell called Symbiosis, which will allow them to “trade” a spell with another player, based on the player’s class and combat role and the Druid’s specialization.

So my question is, if you could have any spell you want from any other class, current spells or new ones in MoP, what would it be? How would you work it into your rotation, gameplay, etc.?

There are two posts I’d like to point out this week. First, Arvash responded to his own topic on The Crimson Hammer. I really like his Army of Angels idea – Army of the Dead but for Paladins! I also really enjoyed Chris Pearson’s response on Confessions of a Grown-Up Gamer. He broke it down by role. For DPS he’d want Dominate Mind! “Walking folks off cliffs or into lava… Such evil joy!” Yes, yes, and yes, I agree with Chris 100%. It’s so much fun to use this in PVP! For tanking he chooses Death and Decay, and for healing he chooses Prayer of Mending. He chose priest spells for two of the three!