Tai's a leatherworker. It's a good profession for a monk even if it's always been a pain to level. This expansion's no exception. People who work with metal get a mine for them and all their alts, so the ore just flows in. People who work with herbs have to level some but they get their herb garden to do the same. If you work with leather, though you get to use up one of your building slots to make a barn. So it already annoys me that it took up a slot I wanted for an inn for materials other people get provided for free.
But I'll deal with that. I'll deal with the finicky traps and the fact that for some reason I couldn't seem to actually catch anything that would provide me with the leather I made the barn for until I got to Nagrand (around level 98). Finally got the barn producing leather and leveled it to three for the adorable pet but also for the chance of being able to farm up savage blood. But elites are no picnic for a healer who isn't that well-geared. Still Tai's usually got a tank to help him out and we split the savage blood.
But sometimes I feel bad asking for help for something that's basically busy work for my garrison and I go out and work on them alone. It takes a fair bit for Tai to beat one of those Clefthooves down low enough to trap them. And here's the part that makes me angry. I can deal with it being a project and taking me about five minutes per trap. What I can't deal with is that Blizzard set up the mob tagging for those elites in a way that allows someone to come along just as I get them down low enough and drop a trap and taunt. The clefthoof goes in their trap and I've just wasted all the time I spent working on it.
There's the variation on this where someone just comes along and nukes the mob down to zero before the trap catches too. Either way I spend a fair bit of time and get nothing out of it but annoyance and frustration. Especially when I go back to my garrison with my meager trap haul and walk by the mine and herb garden that produce so much free ore and herbs for friends and alts. I can't help feeling like other people get free materials and I get to use a building slot for another way for people to grief me.
I think the barn shouldn't have taken a building slot. But it does provide the chance of savage blood so maybe that's fair. But maybe we could at least change the rules for those traps so that they won't work on things not tagged by you or your party members? That still lets people work together, but maybe at least stops me from wishing those big traps worked on other players. And hey then the guy that nukes it down before the trap catches can still get in his daily dose of being a jerk too. But at least I don't have to be filling up barns for the Alliance at no charge.
That's awful, I didn't know that. I generally don't have the chance to have one stolen from me because there are usually none to trap. Someone has already clear cut the area. I was so excited to be able to have a chance at Savage Blood but I'm afraid my barn is almost always sitting there idle.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty awful too, really. And I can definitely see how it would happen since there are times when I've gone over to try to fetch some and every one I see is already in combat. I try to keep it to times that seem like lower traffic ones, but even that doesn't keep a few people from showing up to be jerks.
DeleteThere are lots of less than optimal things going on with the whole barn and trapping setup. Whenever I am out trapping and see someone struggling with an elite, I usually sic my hunter pet on the beast, watch until it is below 50%, then feign death and have my pet play dead, dropping all aggro and letting the player finish the trap. Takes maybe a minute of my time and helps someone out.
ReplyDeleteI love the barn for the Savage Blood production, as well as for the leather, fur and Savage Feasts, but imo it requires the most time of any building to keep going.
I like some of the things about the concept for the barn, but I feel like they need to fix a couple of things to just make it much less of a headache. If the mob couldn't be trapped by anybody but the person/party that tagged it that would do away with a lot of the aggravation I get.
DeleteThose people must be so pleasantly surprised when they realize what you've done to help out. :D I know it always gives me a little does of happiness when someone comes along to help me, though I'm afraid I'd probably think the worst at first by this point.
The barn takes a lot of time to keep going. It definitely takes me ages more to do Tai's garrison than either of the two without barns, even if I do cave and ask the paladin for help on trapping.
I'm a tailor, so I'm in the same boat. I'm not a healer, but I am a squishy clothie, and it takes me a long time to trap them too. I do get my husband to help frequently, but I do feel bad asking him to take time out from whatever he's doing to help me, even if he is getting savage bloods out of it. I always get so frustrated doing it myself that I come home with about 4 trapped animals which occasionally gets me one savage blood. I also don't appreciate that you have to choose between fur/leather + savage blood and food. I need the savage feasts for when it comes time to raid, but I can't stand to "waste" work orders that could be producing savage blood when the drop rate it so low. (Not that I ever have enough trapped to fill up my work orders with the elites, but....)
ReplyDeleteSo. Yeah. I'm not a fan of the whole barn situation either.
I can only imagine it's possibly even worse for a squishy clothie without self heals. I know that the main way I manage to get them down on Tai is going toe to toe with them in crane stance, and using every self-heal I've got. Occasionally I still have to pop over into serpent and heal back up for a moment. Don't know what I'd do as a mage or something, honestly.
DeleteI haven't tried trapping for anything but leather yet so I didn't know that the food beasts didn't have a chance for dropping Savage Blood! There go my plans of producing some feasts. It's enough of a pain in the neck doing the elites without having the chance of Savage Blood for upgrades.
I really feel that some stuff about the barn concept aren't bad but I also don't think it should take up a building slot in your garrison while also requiring that much maintenance.
I got told to get a barn for the fur (my main needs it for tailoring) so I jumped on my alt druid (skinner by trade) and created my barn, then noticed like you mention above...it requires more work to keep going than I had anticipated!!
ReplyDeleteI was sort of hoping there were sheep or cows or something in there that we would shear every day - like herbs and ore from the mines. I didn't realise I would need to actually go into the world and chase animals down and trap them etc. It took me about 30 minutes to do the initial quest because I would kill the mob before they got to the trap...apparently getting them low on health whilst standing ON the trap isn't ok.
I agree with you completely - good idea...badly executed. I don't have a solution for the savage blood issue - but I am sure they could make them drop from farming fur/leather - like if you nick or cut one of them when shearing/skinning or something?
xxoo
Dragonray
At first I sort of thought stocking the barn would be putting animals into it one time or something so they'd breed or something and we'd get free goodies. I was sadly mistaken. lol
DeleteI had thought of several ideas for solutions but at this point all I really want is for those mobs not to be able to be trapped by anybody who wasn't part of the tag. The rest of it's still a lot of busywork and rather annoying but it would be much less irritating to me with just that change. I feel so badly for the tailoring people that have to have them. Poor mages. At least my leather armor and self heals offer me a bit of protection.
I have noticed people stealing mobs and that's annoying as hell! I'm sorry to hear that people can be such turds about it.
ReplyDeleteI think this is another of those times when Blizzard seems to forget that this is the internet. If there's an annoying jerkish thing that -can- be done to someone... some people will do it.
DeleteTrap-stealing is annoying, but, if all the traps are on the same place, each trap will get a catch. Also, there is this sweet moment where you hear someone else trap go off, if you immediately drop your trap, it still works.
ReplyDeleteAnd because the trap last for 30 seconds or so, and has a cool down of 15, you can actually doubletrap yourself.
At first it seems gaming the system, but with watch you experienced (as have I), I think Blizzard actually put it on purpose, especially on PVE-servers versus the other faction. There would be no way to prevent stealing.