I don't have much to say other than that Grid is AWESOME.
What I like: It shows who needs to be healed, whether they're in range, and any debuffs on them. I set it up so that it doesn't show heals from me, meaning that I can see if a target is being healed and ignore them in favor of someone else as needed. It's nowhere near as much excess of information as X-Perl, and it doesn't do random crap like Healbot, it just lets me select whoever needs a heal and heal them. It's exactly what I was looking for in an add-on.
What I don't like: I do need to play with it a little more to customize how debuffs/curses/etc. show up, and I need to figure out if/how I can show pets.
Otherwise it's great. I like it a lot.
So, addons with thumbs up from me: Dominos, Grid, Auctioneer, TradeSkillInfo, Guildcraft (although I wish they'd fix their Inscription issues so that stupid error message goes away).
Yeah, that's pretty much all I use.
EDIT: LIES! I have Omen, too, for group quests.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
WoW Ladies
A group of women who play Alliance on my realm recently decided to get together a "for fun" all-ladies premade.
Before I go any farther, I want to say that I think this sounds like awesome fun, and I hope a Horde version pops up. Now, I know that given the recent discussion of whether female bloggers should identify themselves as such, some might not "get" why women would want to form up a ladies-only premade. (Or at least, given some of the responses to the thread — okay, one person's responses to the thread — I can see this happening.) The long answer involves getting deep into sociological discussions about identity.
The short answer is that sometimes, it's nice to be able to group up with other ladies so we don't have to be "the girl" all the time. And even being in a guild where a big chunk of the members are female and the guys don't treat us any differently, there are still times when a girls night sounds like a lot of fun.
But that's not the point of this post.
That one person I mentioned who responded to the thread? He gave the perfect example of why women who game still need to identify themselves. In the course of the thread, he:
1. Attacked the women responding based on their arena ratings.
2. Implied that all women are bad at PVP.
3. Said it was okay for women to have a ladies' night because no guy wants to be involved, but they couldn't make that ladies' night battlegrounds, because everyone likes battlegrounds. The implication being that women can only do shit no one likes during ladies' nights.
4. Basically nerd-raged about it.
These are the kinds of guys some of us run into regularly. I know there are plenty of women who have never had to deal with sexism in WoW. I think it comes down to server culture sometimes — VeCo is a lot better than most, and I've only rarely had to deal with it there. When I was on Laughing Skull, I would never have admitted to being female, because it was HORRIBLE there. It's similar to racism — while VeCo has had a few spurts from a couple of guilds, it's pretty good on that front, but when I made an alt on another RP-PVP server to check it out, the second I stepped into a city I saw all kinds of anti-Jewish and anti-Asian jokes in trade, and promptly deleted my characters. (I'll hold back on the name of the server since maybe they were just having an off night, but still.)
This is, to put it in a way that will probably get me flamed, something that white guys don't generally have to think about or deal with. Off the cuff racism and sexism is something most white guys never even notice, or might think is funny. And I'm sure that there are a few ladies or gamers of color out there who would agree, because there always are.
But for those of us who do see that shit now and then, no matter how awesome your friends are, it's nice to have a group where you can hang out and KNOW that you're not going to hear some random sexist comment unless it's a joke that everyone's in on. Or where you KNOW you're not going to have someone talking like Mickey fucking Rooney because they think it's funny. And so you can let down your social guard a little bit, because they GET it in a way people who haven't experienced that won't.
Honestly, I don't know why people care so much about controlling where and when other people can hang out with their friends.
Before I go any farther, I want to say that I think this sounds like awesome fun, and I hope a Horde version pops up. Now, I know that given the recent discussion of whether female bloggers should identify themselves as such, some might not "get" why women would want to form up a ladies-only premade. (Or at least, given some of the responses to the thread — okay, one person's responses to the thread — I can see this happening.) The long answer involves getting deep into sociological discussions about identity.
The short answer is that sometimes, it's nice to be able to group up with other ladies so we don't have to be "the girl" all the time. And even being in a guild where a big chunk of the members are female and the guys don't treat us any differently, there are still times when a girls night sounds like a lot of fun.
But that's not the point of this post.
That one person I mentioned who responded to the thread? He gave the perfect example of why women who game still need to identify themselves. In the course of the thread, he:
1. Attacked the women responding based on their arena ratings.
2. Implied that all women are bad at PVP.
3. Said it was okay for women to have a ladies' night because no guy wants to be involved, but they couldn't make that ladies' night battlegrounds, because everyone likes battlegrounds. The implication being that women can only do shit no one likes during ladies' nights.
4. Basically nerd-raged about it.
These are the kinds of guys some of us run into regularly. I know there are plenty of women who have never had to deal with sexism in WoW. I think it comes down to server culture sometimes — VeCo is a lot better than most, and I've only rarely had to deal with it there. When I was on Laughing Skull, I would never have admitted to being female, because it was HORRIBLE there. It's similar to racism — while VeCo has had a few spurts from a couple of guilds, it's pretty good on that front, but when I made an alt on another RP-PVP server to check it out, the second I stepped into a city I saw all kinds of anti-Jewish and anti-Asian jokes in trade, and promptly deleted my characters. (I'll hold back on the name of the server since maybe they were just having an off night, but still.)
This is, to put it in a way that will probably get me flamed, something that white guys don't generally have to think about or deal with. Off the cuff racism and sexism is something most white guys never even notice, or might think is funny. And I'm sure that there are a few ladies or gamers of color out there who would agree, because there always are.
But for those of us who do see that shit now and then, no matter how awesome your friends are, it's nice to have a group where you can hang out and KNOW that you're not going to hear some random sexist comment unless it's a joke that everyone's in on. Or where you KNOW you're not going to have someone talking like Mickey fucking Rooney because they think it's funny. And so you can let down your social guard a little bit, because they GET it in a way people who haven't experienced that won't.
Honestly, I don't know why people care so much about controlling where and when other people can hang out with their friends.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wintergrasp
Okay, so I have a confession. I have not fought much in the Strand or Wintergrasp.
I know, I know, I'm a battleground PVPer! How could I have not spent half my playing time in the new battlegrounds?
Well, I haven't PVPed on my hunter since before the expansion was released (aside from one-on-one matches while leveling) and I've found that, as a healer, I often don't have much to do — can't heal siege engines, sadly. So I hitch a ride or run around and heal the occasional person while trying to figure out what's going on, for the most part.
Plus, Wintergrasp is a bit buggy — like today, for example, when we were fighting in to the relic and had destroyed all of the Alliance tanks, and our towers randomly were destroyed. Despite having defenders, being at close to full repair, and no Alliance tanks in sight. You can also parachute into the keep and take the relic, bypassing the whole battle, the relic is occasionally unclickable, and so on. I've been in four times, and twice the match was bugged (we won one because of it, but it still pisses me off).
So mostly I just do my old school ones. But I was in Dalaran on Ideale when a match started, and figured, "Why not?"
As a hunter, Wintergrasp is FUN. My favorite thing to do? Target the defenders' guns and take them out. I don't think I'd like it on defense, but taking out those guns is a blast. Pewpew! Also, I learned cannot go into the keep because I lag out.
So I guess I will hop in a bit more, especially since I can buy honor with the stone keeper's shards and then buy gear with my honor. So yeah. Fun!
I know, I know, I'm a battleground PVPer! How could I have not spent half my playing time in the new battlegrounds?
Well, I haven't PVPed on my hunter since before the expansion was released (aside from one-on-one matches while leveling) and I've found that, as a healer, I often don't have much to do — can't heal siege engines, sadly. So I hitch a ride or run around and heal the occasional person while trying to figure out what's going on, for the most part.
Plus, Wintergrasp is a bit buggy — like today, for example, when we were fighting in to the relic and had destroyed all of the Alliance tanks, and our towers randomly were destroyed. Despite having defenders, being at close to full repair, and no Alliance tanks in sight. You can also parachute into the keep and take the relic, bypassing the whole battle, the relic is occasionally unclickable, and so on. I've been in four times, and twice the match was bugged (we won one because of it, but it still pisses me off).
So mostly I just do my old school ones. But I was in Dalaran on Ideale when a match started, and figured, "Why not?"
As a hunter, Wintergrasp is FUN. My favorite thing to do? Target the defenders' guns and take them out. I don't think I'd like it on defense, but taking out those guns is a blast. Pewpew! Also, I learned cannot go into the keep because I lag out.
So I guess I will hop in a bit more, especially since I can buy honor with the stone keeper's shards and then buy gear with my honor. So yeah. Fun!
Spectral tiger?
*twitch* Oh, I hope they aren't tamable. If they are, I'm going to have a very hard time choosing whether to camp out for Loque or get a see-through blue stripeycat.
Oh, yeah, and there are patch notes and Ulduar screenshots at MMO Champion, too. New mini-pets and mounts coming, too, including aquatic mounts. That's kind of cool.
Anyway, pretty much everyone has covered patch notes, so I will spare you.
EDIT: From something I posted ... elsewhere:
If I ever do end up getting a daytime job and then raiding with my guild sometimes — because they need resto shammies and my guild kicks ass, so I'd suck it up for them — and T8 is still the best out there, I will stick to T7 and just get really, really good so I can be like, "Skill not gear! Oh please don't make me wear that." Luckily, that will probably never happen, so I dodged that bullet!
Oh, yeah, and there are patch notes and Ulduar screenshots at MMO Champion, too. New mini-pets and mounts coming, too, including aquatic mounts. That's kind of cool.
Anyway, pretty much everyone has covered patch notes, so I will spare you.
EDIT: From something I posted ... elsewhere:
Reason No. 348 why I don't do that PVE thing: The T8 armor might be more hideous than the S4 stuff. I haven't decided yet. Seriously, if I were on the PTR, I'd be reporting that immediately. "There's a problem with T8; it's gross and I won't wear it."
If I ever do end up getting a daytime job and then raiding with my guild sometimes — because they need resto shammies and my guild kicks ass, so I'd suck it up for them — and T8 is still the best out there, I will stick to T7 and just get really, really good so I can be like, "Skill not gear! Oh please don't make me wear that." Luckily, that will probably never happen, so I dodged that bullet!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Some tips for battleground healing: Shamans
Coming soon: Druids
Coming eventually: Priests
Shamans make excellent battleground healers for a lot of reasons; back before the expansion we were great in AV and okay in WSG, but because of our lack of instant heals, we had trouble with other battlegrounds (or at least I did). But with the addition of Riptide, we can be pretty effective in any situation.
General tips
1. Earth Shield yourself. For a long time I advocated putting Earth Shield on someone else, and I still do in Alterac Valley most of the time — for the boss fights, for example, or if you are way in the back and none of the other team are getting to the healers through the DPS. If you are the only healer with your side's flag carrier, Earth Shield the FC. But in the other battlegrounds and situations, you just do not have enough protection to make putting Earth Shield on someone else worth it. If you go down, you aren't healing, and Earth Shield will help keep you up, as well as cut down on pushback if you've talented for it (and if you're mostly PVP healing, you should talent for it).
2. Don't forget your totems. They're not as useful in PVP as in PVE, but they can be pretty effective. If a hunter or warlock sets a pet on you and switches to another target (which seems to happen a good 80 percent of the time in my experience), drop a Stoneclaw Totem. If there's a melee'r on the other team running around taking out totems, keep dropping it because it will stun them and that's funny. Elemental totems can be pretty effective if you're short on people at a graveyard, flag or tower and get rushed by a group. Earthbind totem kicks ass in the WSG flag room.
3. Don't limit yourself just to healing. Farsight can help out in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm to see what's going on at another flag/tower. A lot of shaman abilities can prevent damage and can be really helpful in, say, Warsong Gulch. If you're with your flag carrier, drop Earth Shield and a Riptide on him, then Hex one follower and Frost Shock another, drop Earthbind Totem, etc. so he can get away. Your healing should take first priority, but if you can tangle up the other team a bit without losing your healing target, do it.
4. Shift + V. In PVP, you can't really afford to be staring fixedly at raid frames — you have to be able to glance back and forth between the fight and your tools. Shift + V shows all of the health bars above the heads of your teammates. While it's kind of obnoxious at first, it makes it much easier to see who needs a heal quickly while monitoring the battle and glancing around for any potential threats.
5. Don't be upset when someone dies. In PVE, the goal is to keep your team up through the fight because enough deaths mean a wipe. In battlegrounds, your goal is to keep as many of your team members up as long as possible while making progress toward the objective. A lot of times in battlegrounds, when a mana-dependent class goes OOM, they decide it's more effective or quicker to suicide than to fall back and drink. Sometimes the other team focus-fires on one person, or someone will suicide on purpose to take the heat off of other team members and give them a chance to regroup. This doesn't mean they're out of the fight — they'll be back sometime in the next 30 seconds, so don't freak out. The goal is to move forward or keep the other team from moving forward, and as long as you are doing that, deaths aren't a horrible thing — though the fewer the better, of course.
6. If you end up in a spot with a lot of line of sight issues, don't underestimate Chain Heal. I've occasionally managed to slam a heal to someone who won't stop going around the corner by hitting the closest person in my LOS with a Chain Heal, which then bounces around the corner. Even a few seconds of bought time can help.
Alterac Valley
Healing strategy is somewhat different for Alterac Valley than anywhere else. In AV, you're likely to have three groups through most of the fight — offense, defense, and recappers. As a shaman healer, you're more effective with either the offense or the defense groups; if no healers are with the recappers, you're better than nothing, but since those fights involve a lot of LOS issues in my experience (going into and out of towers, running all around), your only really effective heal will be Riptide (since your healing targets will go around corners right before you get off that chain heal or healing wave), and with the cooldown on it, a druid or priest would be better.
If running defense, Earth Shield yourself and set a healing focus — usually a melee person with a lot of nice PVP gear is a good bet. You'll have time to inspect them while you wait for the Alliance to show. Defense groups are usually smaller on Nightfall. Depending on who you face, you'll probably mostly be using Chain Heal and Riptide with the occasional Lesser Healing Wave thrown in. Don't worry if your defense team dies — the goal is to keep the other team's tied up as long as possible. If you can wipe them, awesome, but as long as you slow them down for a few minutes, you're doing your job.
If you're running offense, you'll probably be using Chain Heal almost exclusively; usually there are at least three healers with the offense unless you get totally screwed on raid makeup, so just watch the melee folks and try to chain heal them for as much effective healing as possible. Throw a Riptide or Healing Wave on a fellow healer if they need it or if an enemy breaks through to attack the healers, but mostly just focus on melee and let your druid or priesty pals take care of the casters — you can even plan it out ahead of time. Shamans should be taking melee whenever possible, because of Chain Heal. If I get in my usual group in the wee morning hours, we generally have me, a disc priest and a tree druid healing, so I take the melee, the priesty takes the casters and healers, and the tree druid HoT rolls. It seems to work out great.
Arathi Basin
Arathi Basin is my favorite battleground, but it sucks as a shaman because people don't see the rocks swinging about you and assume you're pewpew specced, I guess? Seriously, groups always fucking leave me alone at the lumber mill or something and I have to be like, "Um, guys? You fail at life, and I'm about to lose LM." And then I die.
But if you get a non-stupid group or at least one only tinged with failure instead of dyed in it, then it can be a blast. Why? Because good groups fight on the flag, meaning you can run back a few yards and spam chain heals the whole time, and everyone ignores you. It's kind of awesome. It's also pretty fun if it's just you and one other person (my favorites are mages or warriors), because you can just heal heal heal them, and then when focus turns on you heal heal heal yourself, and then when it switches back to your partner heal heal heal them some more, until you run out of mana or they're all dead. And my gear SUCKS but it still usually ends with them all dead before I go OOM. So I like it.
I don't have much in the way of individual strategy to offer here, except that in AB, your Earth Shield should never, never be on anyone but yourself, and if there are AOE'rs on the other side, run away a tiny bit so that they can't hit you and your healing target(s) at the same time. Also, Tremor Totem is very nice if there are priests, warriors and warlocks on the other side. <3 Tremor Totem.
Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm
These are pretty simple. Either: a.) stay at a tower/in your base and heal the people there, or b.) follow the flag runner and keep them healed. Use your totems to good effect — these are battlegrounds where totems can come in super, duper handy. Frost Shock too. Only ever put Earth Shield on yourself or a flag carrier. And beware of line of sight issues. Really, everything else that might be useful has pretty much been covered already.
The main thing about these battlegrounds are that they are the ones where it's most likely you'll have to throw out the occasional DPS and not just straight heal. Watch your mana and make sure that you're not ignoring healing altogether, especially if you're resto rather than a hybrid spec, because all those death knights and ret pallies can do way more damage than you. But if you're not seeing a lot of damage or even a lot of spikes in damage, take a second here and there to throw out some Chain Lightning, and use Hex whenever the cooldown's up for CC help. Otherwise, use Riptide, Healing Wave and, if people are clumped close together, Chain Heal.
Strand of the Ancients
Honestly? I don't do much healing in SotA, nor do I go into it much anyway as I am working on the Conqueror title on both of my 80s. So more on this later, I guess?
Coming eventually: Priests
Shamans make excellent battleground healers for a lot of reasons; back before the expansion we were great in AV and okay in WSG, but because of our lack of instant heals, we had trouble with other battlegrounds (or at least I did). But with the addition of Riptide, we can be pretty effective in any situation.
General tips
1. Earth Shield yourself. For a long time I advocated putting Earth Shield on someone else, and I still do in Alterac Valley most of the time — for the boss fights, for example, or if you are way in the back and none of the other team are getting to the healers through the DPS. If you are the only healer with your side's flag carrier, Earth Shield the FC. But in the other battlegrounds and situations, you just do not have enough protection to make putting Earth Shield on someone else worth it. If you go down, you aren't healing, and Earth Shield will help keep you up, as well as cut down on pushback if you've talented for it (and if you're mostly PVP healing, you should talent for it).
2. Don't forget your totems. They're not as useful in PVP as in PVE, but they can be pretty effective. If a hunter or warlock sets a pet on you and switches to another target (which seems to happen a good 80 percent of the time in my experience), drop a Stoneclaw Totem. If there's a melee'r on the other team running around taking out totems, keep dropping it because it will stun them and that's funny. Elemental totems can be pretty effective if you're short on people at a graveyard, flag or tower and get rushed by a group. Earthbind totem kicks ass in the WSG flag room.
3. Don't limit yourself just to healing. Farsight can help out in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm to see what's going on at another flag/tower. A lot of shaman abilities can prevent damage and can be really helpful in, say, Warsong Gulch. If you're with your flag carrier, drop Earth Shield and a Riptide on him, then Hex one follower and Frost Shock another, drop Earthbind Totem, etc. so he can get away. Your healing should take first priority, but if you can tangle up the other team a bit without losing your healing target, do it.
4. Shift + V. In PVP, you can't really afford to be staring fixedly at raid frames — you have to be able to glance back and forth between the fight and your tools. Shift + V shows all of the health bars above the heads of your teammates. While it's kind of obnoxious at first, it makes it much easier to see who needs a heal quickly while monitoring the battle and glancing around for any potential threats.
5. Don't be upset when someone dies. In PVE, the goal is to keep your team up through the fight because enough deaths mean a wipe. In battlegrounds, your goal is to keep as many of your team members up as long as possible while making progress toward the objective. A lot of times in battlegrounds, when a mana-dependent class goes OOM, they decide it's more effective or quicker to suicide than to fall back and drink. Sometimes the other team focus-fires on one person, or someone will suicide on purpose to take the heat off of other team members and give them a chance to regroup. This doesn't mean they're out of the fight — they'll be back sometime in the next 30 seconds, so don't freak out. The goal is to move forward or keep the other team from moving forward, and as long as you are doing that, deaths aren't a horrible thing — though the fewer the better, of course.
6. If you end up in a spot with a lot of line of sight issues, don't underestimate Chain Heal. I've occasionally managed to slam a heal to someone who won't stop going around the corner by hitting the closest person in my LOS with a Chain Heal, which then bounces around the corner. Even a few seconds of bought time can help.
Alterac Valley
Healing strategy is somewhat different for Alterac Valley than anywhere else. In AV, you're likely to have three groups through most of the fight — offense, defense, and recappers. As a shaman healer, you're more effective with either the offense or the defense groups; if no healers are with the recappers, you're better than nothing, but since those fights involve a lot of LOS issues in my experience (going into and out of towers, running all around), your only really effective heal will be Riptide (since your healing targets will go around corners right before you get off that chain heal or healing wave), and with the cooldown on it, a druid or priest would be better.
If running defense, Earth Shield yourself and set a healing focus — usually a melee person with a lot of nice PVP gear is a good bet. You'll have time to inspect them while you wait for the Alliance to show. Defense groups are usually smaller on Nightfall. Depending on who you face, you'll probably mostly be using Chain Heal and Riptide with the occasional Lesser Healing Wave thrown in. Don't worry if your defense team dies — the goal is to keep the other team's tied up as long as possible. If you can wipe them, awesome, but as long as you slow them down for a few minutes, you're doing your job.
If you're running offense, you'll probably be using Chain Heal almost exclusively; usually there are at least three healers with the offense unless you get totally screwed on raid makeup, so just watch the melee folks and try to chain heal them for as much effective healing as possible. Throw a Riptide or Healing Wave on a fellow healer if they need it or if an enemy breaks through to attack the healers, but mostly just focus on melee and let your druid or priesty pals take care of the casters — you can even plan it out ahead of time. Shamans should be taking melee whenever possible, because of Chain Heal. If I get in my usual group in the wee morning hours, we generally have me, a disc priest and a tree druid healing, so I take the melee, the priesty takes the casters and healers, and the tree druid HoT rolls. It seems to work out great.
Arathi Basin
Arathi Basin is my favorite battleground, but it sucks as a shaman because people don't see the rocks swinging about you and assume you're pewpew specced, I guess? Seriously, groups always fucking leave me alone at the lumber mill or something and I have to be like, "Um, guys? You fail at life, and I'm about to lose LM." And then I die.
But if you get a non-stupid group or at least one only tinged with failure instead of dyed in it, then it can be a blast. Why? Because good groups fight on the flag, meaning you can run back a few yards and spam chain heals the whole time, and everyone ignores you. It's kind of awesome. It's also pretty fun if it's just you and one other person (my favorites are mages or warriors), because you can just heal heal heal them, and then when focus turns on you heal heal heal yourself, and then when it switches back to your partner heal heal heal them some more, until you run out of mana or they're all dead. And my gear SUCKS but it still usually ends with them all dead before I go OOM. So I like it.
I don't have much in the way of individual strategy to offer here, except that in AB, your Earth Shield should never, never be on anyone but yourself, and if there are AOE'rs on the other side, run away a tiny bit so that they can't hit you and your healing target(s) at the same time. Also, Tremor Totem is very nice if there are priests, warriors and warlocks on the other side. <3 Tremor Totem.
Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm
These are pretty simple. Either: a.) stay at a tower/in your base and heal the people there, or b.) follow the flag runner and keep them healed. Use your totems to good effect — these are battlegrounds where totems can come in super, duper handy. Frost Shock too. Only ever put Earth Shield on yourself or a flag carrier. And beware of line of sight issues. Really, everything else that might be useful has pretty much been covered already.
The main thing about these battlegrounds are that they are the ones where it's most likely you'll have to throw out the occasional DPS and not just straight heal. Watch your mana and make sure that you're not ignoring healing altogether, especially if you're resto rather than a hybrid spec, because all those death knights and ret pallies can do way more damage than you. But if you're not seeing a lot of damage or even a lot of spikes in damage, take a second here and there to throw out some Chain Lightning, and use Hex whenever the cooldown's up for CC help. Otherwise, use Riptide, Healing Wave and, if people are clumped close together, Chain Heal.
Strand of the Ancients
Honestly? I don't do much healing in SotA, nor do I go into it much anyway as I am working on the Conqueror title on both of my 80s. So more on this later, I guess?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ceci n'est pas une chat
In the end, I couldn't do it.
I picked out a warp stalker — named him Custard — and was having a blast with him, and I thought I could. So I went to Nagrand, pulled Gutripper out of my stable, fed her a couple treats and took a couple screenshots ... and then let Custard go.
I can't bring myself to abandon my Gutsy. Even if I dislike the changes to owls with 3.0, I just can't do it. I went through too much to tame her, and too much to level her up, and spent way too much time doing dailies with her on the Isle. I can't do it. And as much awesome fun as warp stalkers are — and they are a total blast — I can't give up my dream of taming Loque'nahak, either.
Someday, I will level Daj up to the 61-70 bracket, and tame a warp stalker with her. Or maybe Blizz will add more stable slots someday again. But I just get way too attached to my pets. I can't do it.
I picked out a warp stalker — named him Custard — and was having a blast with him, and I thought I could. So I went to Nagrand, pulled Gutripper out of my stable, fed her a couple treats and took a couple screenshots ... and then let Custard go.
I can't bring myself to abandon my Gutsy. Even if I dislike the changes to owls with 3.0, I just can't do it. I went through too much to tame her, and too much to level her up, and spent way too much time doing dailies with her on the Isle. I can't do it. And as much awesome fun as warp stalkers are — and they are a total blast — I can't give up my dream of taming Loque'nahak, either.
Someday, I will level Daj up to the 61-70 bracket, and tame a warp stalker with her. Or maybe Blizz will add more stable slots someday again. But I just get way too attached to my pets. I can't do it.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Why I love RP servers
Scene: Booty Bay, at the leather armor shop.
Cast: Onashne, level 43 (at the time) druid; Mr. X, level 45 troll rogue.
Onashne is hard at work in the shop, carefully crafting turtlescale breastplates and Nightscape Pants and occasionally purchasing thread and other supplies. Mr. X walks in and, without a word, rudely interrupts with a group invite. Onashne declines, and another invite is offered. Onashne declines again.
Mr. X: fallow me
Onashne: No, thank you. I'm working.
Mr. X: fallow me want to lvl
Onashne: I'm sorry, I don't understand you.
Mr. X: wnt 2 lvl
Onashne: ... What? I don't know what that means!
Mr. X: HOW. DID. U. LVL. 2. 43
Onashne: I am sorry, Mr. X, but I only speak Taurahe and a little Orcish. I do not understand your language.
Mr. X: wtf
Onashne: I'm very sorry, but I don't speak troll.
Onashne mimes speaking, points at Mr. X and shakes her head.
Mr. X invites Onashne to a group. Onashne declines.
Mr. X: Y WONT U GROUP W ME?
Onashne: Um. I don't understand!
Onashne looks at Blizrex Goodstitch for help.
Onashne: You don't speak any troll, do you? Can you translate for me?
Mr. X leaves.
NOTE: Normally I would be more polite, but the invites without a word to me, nubspeak, and "shouting" pissed me off. So I figured, hey, why not? Either he'd get the point and be more polite, or he'd move on. And I was right.
Cast: Onashne, level 43 (at the time) druid; Mr. X, level 45 troll rogue.
Onashne is hard at work in the shop, carefully crafting turtlescale breastplates and Nightscape Pants and occasionally purchasing thread and other supplies. Mr. X walks in and, without a word, rudely interrupts with a group invite. Onashne declines, and another invite is offered. Onashne declines again.
Mr. X: fallow me
Onashne: No, thank you. I'm working.
Mr. X: fallow me want to lvl
Onashne: I'm sorry, I don't understand you.
Mr. X: wnt 2 lvl
Onashne: ... What? I don't know what that means!
Mr. X: HOW. DID. U. LVL. 2. 43
Onashne: I am sorry, Mr. X, but I only speak Taurahe and a little Orcish. I do not understand your language.
Mr. X: wtf
Onashne: I'm very sorry, but I don't speak troll.
Onashne mimes speaking, points at Mr. X and shakes her head.
Mr. X invites Onashne to a group. Onashne declines.
Mr. X: Y WONT U GROUP W ME?
Onashne: Um. I don't understand!
Onashne looks at Blizrex Goodstitch for help.
Onashne: You don't speak any troll, do you? Can you translate for me?
Mr. X leaves.
NOTE: Normally I would be more polite, but the invites without a word to me, nubspeak, and "shouting" pissed me off. So I figured, hey, why not? Either he'd get the point and be more polite, or he'd move on. And I was right.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Best comment ever
Finding a comfortable and good looking tabard in this economy can be hard. We can help.
Linked from the word "tabard" to what I assume is a phishing site.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Maybe I'm the Alt Collector
*deep breath* I'm the Kitty Collector and I'm an altoholic. There. You guys win, okay?
I briefly went into Arathi Basin on my druid the other day to try the boomkin PVP thing and ended up healing instead. And it was a blast. I can't wait to hit 80 so I can spec as a tree full-time!
And then I switched to Ahami and ran some AB on her, too, to see if the setup of my hot bars was going to be problematic (yes) and get a little comparison. Shaman is still more fun, but I think I'll like them both once I get more used to the druid. After that, I flipped back to Onashne and moved buttons around until I was happy with the results.
And then I sat at the character creation screen for half an hour creating a blood elf priest, before remembering that I still need to: a.) get more resilience and grind rep on my two mains; b.) level Ide's pets and hopefully tame Loque; c.) level the druid and mage; d.) max out all their professions; e.) get epic flyers for all of them. Plus I'm organizing a couple of recurring events, one for the guild and one for the Horde-side of VeCo. And I have a hunter twink and a 'lock twink who I'd like to level a little and then gear out.
I never hit the create button — mostly because WoW really doesn't need another blood elf, does it? — but I was very, very tempted. Despite having a little itty pally sitting just shy of level 10 who I was thinking about making a twink healer.
I doubt I will level another healer (or another toon, really) to 80 after my planned alts get there. I'll be completely self-sufficient with everything but enchanting gear-wise and with gathering professions once Onashne and Kamai hit 80. And since I don't PVE much, I have to work on reps and stuff the hard way, via turn-ins, dailies and other boring stuff. By the time these four hit exalted with the factions they need, the next expansion will probably be out.
Really, too, while I've been having a blast leveling Onashne, I'll be glad when she catches up with E. and I can go back to playing my mains for more than just dailies. I miss them both very much, especially Ahami. Ideale has been getting out every day to gather meat for the cooking dailies, do a handful of quests for gold or gather Nesingwary Lackey Ears so I can get her a hippogryph when she has the money for epic flying. Ahami does the cooking quest and sometimes Aces High! and then goes back to the inn to rest. The break was nice, but I'm totally ready to get back to playing them and especially hitting the battlegrounds.
But a priest looks fun. A lot more fun than a pally, really — I just rolled the pally to annoy my friend (long story). Plus, since I have my magey tailor, I'd still be self-sufficient as far as gear goes. And then I could have an alchemist/enchanter at max level.
I think I have WoW ADD. Having a night job that leaves me with too much time on my hands in the wee hours of the morning doesn't help, either.
I briefly went into Arathi Basin on my druid the other day to try the boomkin PVP thing and ended up healing instead. And it was a blast. I can't wait to hit 80 so I can spec as a tree full-time!
And then I switched to Ahami and ran some AB on her, too, to see if the setup of my hot bars was going to be problematic (yes) and get a little comparison. Shaman is still more fun, but I think I'll like them both once I get more used to the druid. After that, I flipped back to Onashne and moved buttons around until I was happy with the results.
And then I sat at the character creation screen for half an hour creating a blood elf priest, before remembering that I still need to: a.) get more resilience and grind rep on my two mains; b.) level Ide's pets and hopefully tame Loque; c.) level the druid and mage; d.) max out all their professions; e.) get epic flyers for all of them. Plus I'm organizing a couple of recurring events, one for the guild and one for the Horde-side of VeCo. And I have a hunter twink and a 'lock twink who I'd like to level a little and then gear out.
I never hit the create button — mostly because WoW really doesn't need another blood elf, does it? — but I was very, very tempted. Despite having a little itty pally sitting just shy of level 10 who I was thinking about making a twink healer.
I doubt I will level another healer (or another toon, really) to 80 after my planned alts get there. I'll be completely self-sufficient with everything but enchanting gear-wise and with gathering professions once Onashne and Kamai hit 80. And since I don't PVE much, I have to work on reps and stuff the hard way, via turn-ins, dailies and other boring stuff. By the time these four hit exalted with the factions they need, the next expansion will probably be out.
Really, too, while I've been having a blast leveling Onashne, I'll be glad when she catches up with E. and I can go back to playing my mains for more than just dailies. I miss them both very much, especially Ahami. Ideale has been getting out every day to gather meat for the cooking dailies, do a handful of quests for gold or gather Nesingwary Lackey Ears so I can get her a hippogryph when she has the money for epic flying. Ahami does the cooking quest and sometimes Aces High! and then goes back to the inn to rest. The break was nice, but I'm totally ready to get back to playing them and especially hitting the battlegrounds.
But a priest looks fun. A lot more fun than a pally, really — I just rolled the pally to annoy my friend (long story). Plus, since I have my magey tailor, I'd still be self-sufficient as far as gear goes. And then I could have an alchemist/enchanter at max level.
I think I have WoW ADD. Having a night job that leaves me with too much time on my hands in the wee hours of the morning doesn't help, either.
Monday, February 16, 2009
PVP Tip #549
Be aware of your surroundings.
This includes two things:
- Environment. Are there cliffs around that you might fall off of — or trick/mind control the enemy off of? Are there walls to LOS around? Are you going to get stuck on anything?
Bad PVPers use their environment as an excuse for their failures. "I'd have won, but I fell off that ledge." Good PVPers use the environment to their advantage, to gain an edge.
- People. Are there enemies in the area other than the one you're targetting? Will they give you any trouble? Are there people from your faction around, and will they help you? Don't just assume; ask.
E. and I were in the Searing Gorge about an hour ago, trying to get my druid some quick XP while giving her something to do quest-wise. We were doing some quests for a tailoring pattern for her, and I had ridden on ahead, when I saw her health start to drop.
"What's up with your health?"
"Something's on me."
So I rode back to see a rogue two levels above her poking her in the back with a very sharp knife. I heal heal heal, because that's what I do, and she quite neatly takes him out. Did he know there was a druid around? Probably not - he might have just assumed I wouldn't care because we hadn't been obviously acting like we were questing together. But when it became clear we were together and I was healing, he got overconfident. He blinded me instead of hitting vanish or destroying me, and it wore off and we took him out. (Or maybe he did vanish, but all the dots he was covered in pulled him back out.)
Lesson? Be careful that the person you're ganking doesn't have a pocket healer stashed somewhere — or, if you know they're there, take them out first.
This includes two things:
- Environment. Are there cliffs around that you might fall off of — or trick/mind control the enemy off of? Are there walls to LOS around? Are you going to get stuck on anything?
Bad PVPers use their environment as an excuse for their failures. "I'd have won, but I fell off that ledge." Good PVPers use the environment to their advantage, to gain an edge.
- People. Are there enemies in the area other than the one you're targetting? Will they give you any trouble? Are there people from your faction around, and will they help you? Don't just assume; ask.
E. and I were in the Searing Gorge about an hour ago, trying to get my druid some quick XP while giving her something to do quest-wise. We were doing some quests for a tailoring pattern for her, and I had ridden on ahead, when I saw her health start to drop.
"What's up with your health?"
"Something's on me."
So I rode back to see a rogue two levels above her poking her in the back with a very sharp knife. I heal heal heal, because that's what I do, and she quite neatly takes him out. Did he know there was a druid around? Probably not - he might have just assumed I wouldn't care because we hadn't been obviously acting like we were questing together. But when it became clear we were together and I was healing, he got overconfident. He blinded me instead of hitting vanish or destroying me, and it wore off and we took him out. (Or maybe he did vanish, but all the dots he was covered in pulled him back out.)
Lesson? Be careful that the person you're ganking doesn't have a pocket healer stashed somewhere — or, if you know they're there, take them out first.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Moooooooonkin
I've found a lot of neat quests and quest chains hidden about in various lowbie zones, so I figured I'd make a non-stupid list. But right now I am le tired, so instead, a screenshot:
Saturday, February 14, 2009
To do: Resilience
My first task, as soon as I'm done catching Onashne up to her priesty pal, will be to start "gearing" my toons, particularly Ahami.
Because this is my problem: The resilience cap is, according to PlusHeal.com members, 1,230. Ahami's current resilience is 168.
Yeah, you read that right.
Now with Ideale, that's not as much of an issue in the battlegrounds — sure, it sucks in world PVP when people recognize me, or if I end up in 1v1, but in the battlegrounds, hunters are mostly ignored if they are not putting out insane amounts of damage. And given my gear and the fact that BM is not crazy OP anymore, I'm not putting out insane amounts of anything. Which I'm totally fine with, because any bit of pewpew helps in an AV full of cave-AFKers. Ideale is more my "for fun" character anyway — I'm totally fine with just cruising around in my Swiftarrow set.
But Ahami is a healer, and now that I'm getting to the point where I start recognizing names in the battlegrounds (it's a small crowd that hits up AB at 2:30 a.m.), many of the people I'm coming up against know she's a healer or figure it out quick. And while I can heal through damage from fresh 80s and undergeared alts, when I come up against a well-geared DPSer of any class, I melt like the Ice Stone.
As one member pointed out, healers need resilience. We really do. If we die fast, then our teammates aren't getting our heals. If we have to heal ourselves through damage instead of healing our team, our teammates aren't getting our heals.
So goal one when Onashne hits the 50s will be: a.) hitting the battlegrounds until I can grab honor gear, b.) go back to working on rep with various factions for various PVP enchants, and c.) maybe watching some VOA vids so that next time someone asks me to run it, I can go along if I want to and maybe pick up some decent drops. I hate PVE, yeah, but VOA is super-fast (or at least guildies who run it are in and out in about half an hour), allegedly super-easy, and drops PVP gear and emblems, so why not run it a couple times if I'm in the mood?
Because this is my problem: The resilience cap is, according to PlusHeal.com members, 1,230. Ahami's current resilience is 168.
Yeah, you read that right.
Now with Ideale, that's not as much of an issue in the battlegrounds — sure, it sucks in world PVP when people recognize me, or if I end up in 1v1, but in the battlegrounds, hunters are mostly ignored if they are not putting out insane amounts of damage. And given my gear and the fact that BM is not crazy OP anymore, I'm not putting out insane amounts of anything. Which I'm totally fine with, because any bit of pewpew helps in an AV full of cave-AFKers. Ideale is more my "for fun" character anyway — I'm totally fine with just cruising around in my Swiftarrow set.
But Ahami is a healer, and now that I'm getting to the point where I start recognizing names in the battlegrounds (it's a small crowd that hits up AB at 2:30 a.m.), many of the people I'm coming up against know she's a healer or figure it out quick. And while I can heal through damage from fresh 80s and undergeared alts, when I come up against a well-geared DPSer of any class, I melt like the Ice Stone.
As one member pointed out, healers need resilience. We really do. If we die fast, then our teammates aren't getting our heals. If we have to heal ourselves through damage instead of healing our team, our teammates aren't getting our heals.
So goal one when Onashne hits the 50s will be: a.) hitting the battlegrounds until I can grab honor gear, b.) go back to working on rep with various factions for various PVP enchants, and c.) maybe watching some VOA vids so that next time someone asks me to run it, I can go along if I want to and maybe pick up some decent drops. I hate PVE, yeah, but VOA is super-fast (or at least guildies who run it are in and out in about half an hour), allegedly super-easy, and drops PVP gear and emblems, so why not run it a couple times if I'm in the mood?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Why so much druid?
1. When Wrath hit, I was pretty focused on leveling Ahami and Ideale, and trying this death knight thing out. What this meant is that Onashne was sitting at 30 for 3 months. Not awful, except her leveling partner is my roommate's first and so far only character, and she was certainly not going to stop playing and wait around for my sorry butt. So she leveled to 51 (with a little help from my DK in Stranglethorn Vale and some instances) and now I have to play catch up if I want to go through the Dark Portal with her. So I've been playing Onashne a lot.
2. I love Ideale and Ahami, but I have played Ahami basically non-stop since June, and Ideale mostly non-stop except for the three weeks it took to level Ahami from 68-80, since March-ish. Right now, all I want to do as far as end game goes is run AB on Ahami and level pets and tame kitties on Ideale, neither of which are that exciting to write about. I'm a little burnt out on Northrend questing, dailies, leveling professions, and so on. Playing Onashne is new and different, and I'm revisiting old zones I love.
3. The Ice Stone has melted!
4. I really love healing on Ahami, and I'd really like to compare druid healing to shaman healing — eventually I'd like to test out every healing class in the game, with a pally and a priest in the twink brackets. However, I am really enjoying balance, and I really like the idea of druids, and the green healyness, and the fact that usually it's me and a druid battling it out for top healer in AV, so Onashne wins and gets to go to Northrend.
5. I feel like I talk too much about the Triangle Defense.
2. I love Ideale and Ahami, but I have played Ahami basically non-stop since June, and Ideale mostly non-stop except for the three weeks it took to level Ahami from 68-80, since March-ish. Right now, all I want to do as far as end game goes is run AB on Ahami and level pets and tame kitties on Ideale, neither of which are that exciting to write about. I'm a little burnt out on Northrend questing, dailies, leveling professions, and so on. Playing Onashne is new and different, and I'm revisiting old zones I love.
3. The Ice Stone has melted!
4. I really love healing on Ahami, and I'd really like to compare druid healing to shaman healing — eventually I'd like to test out every healing class in the game, with a pally and a priest in the twink brackets. However, I am really enjoying balance, and I really like the idea of druids, and the green healyness, and the fact that usually it's me and a druid battling it out for top healer in AV, so Onashne wins and gets to go to Northrend.
5. I feel like I talk too much about the Triangle Defense.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
UI update
I downloaded Dominos for my action bars and I am in love. IN LOOOOOOVE. Which is appropriate for the current WoW holiday, isn't it?
But there is one problem, which may not be a problem at all. Dominos is obviously meant for players at end-game, because it shows no XP bar. I got my rep at the top of the screen, my action bars all in the lower right corner, and no XP bar in sight. This is fine on Ideale or Ahami, since they're both 80, but I logged into Onashne and I have absolutely no idea how far into 37 she is.
It's kind of, to completely misuse a term, zen.
The problem is that Onashne needs to hit 58 around the time E. hits 58-60, so we can hit Outland together. After that, I'd be cool with vanished XP bars, but right now, I'd really like to see what I'm doing.
I guess I could comment on Curse and see if anyone has a solution.
Other mods tried: X-Perl. I tried to give it a good shot, I really did, but I keep dying in AV over and over and over again because it's literally too much information. I have a lot of trouble weeding out information — it's one of the reasons I fail at math. So having too much information, instead of helping me heal, actually destroyed my reaction time. My healing per game has dropped from an average of 275K-300K all the way down to 18K on my last match, and that was the best so far. And my deaths per game went from an average of three or so to something like 15-20.
Eventually, I'm sure I would get used to it and bounce back. A big part of my problem was the newness of it; I was constantly processing everything instead of filtering/ignoring stuff. But I'm too impatient to wait until my brain sorts itself out, plus it takes up waaaaay too much screen real estate. So I deleted it.
I'm going to try Grid — it looks much less distracting — but I don't have time today, so it will have to wait.
But there is one problem, which may not be a problem at all. Dominos is obviously meant for players at end-game, because it shows no XP bar. I got my rep at the top of the screen, my action bars all in the lower right corner, and no XP bar in sight. This is fine on Ideale or Ahami, since they're both 80, but I logged into Onashne and I have absolutely no idea how far into 37 she is.
It's kind of, to completely misuse a term, zen.
The problem is that Onashne needs to hit 58 around the time E. hits 58-60, so we can hit Outland together. After that, I'd be cool with vanished XP bars, but right now, I'd really like to see what I'm doing.
I guess I could comment on Curse and see if anyone has a solution.
Other mods tried: X-Perl. I tried to give it a good shot, I really did, but I keep dying in AV over and over and over again because it's literally too much information. I have a lot of trouble weeding out information — it's one of the reasons I fail at math. So having too much information, instead of helping me heal, actually destroyed my reaction time. My healing per game has dropped from an average of 275K-300K all the way down to 18K on my last match, and that was the best so far. And my deaths per game went from an average of three or so to something like 15-20.
Eventually, I'm sure I would get used to it and bounce back. A big part of my problem was the newness of it; I was constantly processing everything instead of filtering/ignoring stuff. But I'm too impatient to wait until my brain sorts itself out, plus it takes up waaaaay too much screen real estate. So I deleted it.
I'm going to try Grid — it looks much less distracting — but I don't have time today, so it will have to wait.
My secret favorite
I am having a BLAST playing my druid. I am seriously in love with balance. The longer I play her, the more I like her.
But my favorite thing about playing her is this: At level 37, I still have slots open on my main action bar.
With Ideale, I had every space filled up by now with shots, plus a crapton of aspects and traps and stuff on the secondary bars. With Ahami, it was totems and shock spells.
Onashne has five spells, three heals and warstomp on the main bar, and four or five things on the secondary bars. That's it. I might even be able to turn off one of her bars and just stick with four if this keeps up!
It's a magical thing.
But my favorite thing about playing her is this: At level 37, I still have slots open on my main action bar.
With Ideale, I had every space filled up by now with shots, plus a crapton of aspects and traps and stuff on the secondary bars. With Ahami, it was totems and shock spells.
Onashne has five spells, three heals and warstomp on the main bar, and four or five things on the secondary bars. That's it. I might even be able to turn off one of her bars and just stick with four if this keeps up!
It's a magical thing.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ammogate '09?
Because adding "-gate" to anything makes it suddenly SCANDELOUS.
Anyway, the devs realized that today was Retraction Day:
They will pry the quiver from my cold, dead pixel-hands. Okay, the removal of quivers and consumable ammo is supposed to still come in a later patch, and I don't intend to die when it happens. But I'm still keeping my quiver until then, and if it ends up holding 240,000 arrows or something, so be it.
* So I paraphrased. Big deal.
Anyway, the devs realized that today was Retraction Day:
"Our bad, ammo will still be consumable after 3.1. But you can stack them more and ditch your quivers!" * — The Devs
They will pry the quiver from my cold, dead pixel-hands. Okay, the removal of quivers and consumable ammo is supposed to still come in a later patch, and I don't intend to die when it happens. But I'm still keeping my quiver until then, and if it ends up holding 240,000 arrows or something, so be it.
* So I paraphrased. Big deal.
Battleground PVP changes
I know that many, many things have changed with the new expansion. Major changes from the addition of tanks in Strand of the Ancients and death knights to minor things like achievements encouraging players to actually do shit in the battlegrounds has changed a few things.
Things that haven't changed, Horde edition:
1. In Arathi Basin, in the first minute, take control of the freaking lumber mill and blacksmith before you head for the gold mine or stables. The mine is strategically useless and the stables are too hard to hold if you can't count on reinforcements from either the LM, the BS or both. I've been playing this game for a year and this has never changed in that entire time — if you are heading for the mine or stables right out of the gate, you fail.
2. You know the Snowfall Graveyard in Alterac Valley? Why the hell are you capping it? If Horde controls all the graveyards, then the Alliance all rez over by Vann, and then that one stupid mage/elemental shaman combo AOE wipes the whole group over and over and over again because what else are they gonna do?
3. Achievements did not stop people from AFKing in the cave in AV. Please continue to report them. The arena season will hopefully end someday, and then they will all go away until the next arena season, I'm sure.
4. You still need to capture the flag to win Warsong Gulch. The flag is not somewhere in the middle, unless it's because the Alliance flag carrier is RP-walking by while you ignore them completely for the HKs.
5. I don't know if anything about Eye of the Storm has changed. No one ever goes there on Nightfall — including me, after losing a win four times in one week after the three or four Alliance players (to our three or four Horde) all deserted. GG.
Sorry, Alliance, I fail at leveling space goats so I have nothing for you except this: Your zerging strategy in AB? It doesn't really work. See, we just have a lone druid go recap each base as you leave it for the next. You might want to try something else.
EDIT: One really nice change I have seen is that people seem to be much nicer to each other in the battlegrounds (Horde, Nightfall, around 2 a.m. PST). There's a lot more communication and a lot less "omgwtfbbq l2play n00b."
Things that haven't changed, Horde edition:
1. In Arathi Basin, in the first minute, take control of the freaking lumber mill and blacksmith before you head for the gold mine or stables. The mine is strategically useless and the stables are too hard to hold if you can't count on reinforcements from either the LM, the BS or both. I've been playing this game for a year and this has never changed in that entire time — if you are heading for the mine or stables right out of the gate, you fail.
2. You know the Snowfall Graveyard in Alterac Valley? Why the hell are you capping it? If Horde controls all the graveyards, then the Alliance all rez over by Vann, and then that one stupid mage/elemental shaman combo AOE wipes the whole group over and over and over again because what else are they gonna do?
3. Achievements did not stop people from AFKing in the cave in AV. Please continue to report them. The arena season will hopefully end someday, and then they will all go away until the next arena season, I'm sure.
4. You still need to capture the flag to win Warsong Gulch. The flag is not somewhere in the middle, unless it's because the Alliance flag carrier is RP-walking by while you ignore them completely for the HKs.
5. I don't know if anything about Eye of the Storm has changed. No one ever goes there on Nightfall — including me, after losing a win four times in one week after the three or four Alliance players (to our three or four Horde) all deserted. GG.
Sorry, Alliance, I fail at leveling space goats so I have nothing for you except this: Your zerging strategy in AB? It doesn't really work. See, we just have a lone druid go recap each base as you leave it for the next. You might want to try something else.
EDIT: One really nice change I have seen is that people seem to be much nicer to each other in the battlegrounds (Horde, Nightfall, around 2 a.m. PST). There's a lot more communication and a lot less "omgwtfbbq l2play n00b."
I'm thinking it is a sickness
I was talking to a guildmate the other day, and mentioned that while I am keeping a slot free for Loque, I was thinking about freeing Gutripper for another pet. I don't play with her very much, as she requires a little too much micromanagement in PVP and I like my cats for soloing. In fact, right now she's at level 75 only because I pulled her out of the stable when I hit 80. That seems unfair, and I think she deserves to be free.
So we were talking about pets I'd like to try, and at some point, I said, "I'd really like another cat, but that's stupid. If I get Loque, that would be four cats."
And then he pointed out that I don't raid or even PVE on Ideale, cats are perfectly good pets, and if it fits her RP, why not?
There are pets I'd like to try — I'd love to give windserpents and hyenas a shot — but there are so many cats in the game that I love, and since Cinny hit 80 and is taking a well-earned rest, I pulled out Saffron and have completely reconsidered my earlier plans to abandon her. I love my cats, they're perfectly serviceable battleground pets, and if it's silly to have three and maybe someday four cats on my only end-game hunter, well, it's a game. And I will play it how I want.
Besides, Ideale is totally a cat hunter. My other hunter, Daj, who will someday be leveled to at least 39, is high enough to tame a hyena and half a level from being able to grab Arikara, so I can play around on her. But I know what I like, and that's kitties, so kitties I shall have.
So we were talking about pets I'd like to try, and at some point, I said, "I'd really like another cat, but that's stupid. If I get Loque, that would be four cats."
And then he pointed out that I don't raid or even PVE on Ideale, cats are perfectly good pets, and if it fits her RP, why not?
There are pets I'd like to try — I'd love to give windserpents and hyenas a shot — but there are so many cats in the game that I love, and since Cinny hit 80 and is taking a well-earned rest, I pulled out Saffron and have completely reconsidered my earlier plans to abandon her. I love my cats, they're perfectly serviceable battleground pets, and if it's silly to have three and maybe someday four cats on my only end-game hunter, well, it's a game. And I will play it how I want.
Besides, Ideale is totally a cat hunter. My other hunter, Daj, who will someday be leveled to at least 39, is high enough to tame a hyena and half a level from being able to grab Arikara, so I can play around on her. But I know what I like, and that's kitties, so kitties I shall have.
Monday, February 9, 2009
My favorite tool
So you're rolling a class you've never played before and really don't know much about, and you want a quick guide to which stats and bonuses to look for on gear. Where do you go?
For the quickest answer, I go to the official website: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/items/armorsets/
The bonuses: You can get a very quick glimpse at which stats help your class and spec, and, by omission, learn which to ignore. Back in the day you could also see which races looked best in the high-end armor, but since it hasn't yet been updated for Wrath, all you can see is still the old stuff.
The cons: There's no explanation or theorycrafting; it's great as a quick guide, but if you're trying to figure out whether to sacrifice agility for pure AP, it's not much help, especially considering the class changes that came with the new expansion.
Basically, it's just good for when you hit the 20s and 30s and for the first time start getting stats on quest rewards and dungeon gear. By the time you get to the higher levels (I'd say probably Outland on), you probably want to have a decent grasp of what makes your class tick instead of just a checklist of stats.
One other con: If you like to play dress-up with your toons like I do, you will end up with a checklist of lower-level gear to brow-beat your achievement buddy into helping you farm. Ahami WILL be getting the old school dungeon set for RP. Onashne will likely be following suit. Luckily, most of the hunter and mage armor is hideous, so I won't have to farm crap four times in a row.
For the quickest answer, I go to the official website: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/items/armorsets/
The bonuses: You can get a very quick glimpse at which stats help your class and spec, and, by omission, learn which to ignore. Back in the day you could also see which races looked best in the high-end armor, but since it hasn't yet been updated for Wrath, all you can see is still the old stuff.
The cons: There's no explanation or theorycrafting; it's great as a quick guide, but if you're trying to figure out whether to sacrifice agility for pure AP, it's not much help, especially considering the class changes that came with the new expansion.
Basically, it's just good for when you hit the 20s and 30s and for the first time start getting stats on quest rewards and dungeon gear. By the time you get to the higher levels (I'd say probably Outland on), you probably want to have a decent grasp of what makes your class tick instead of just a checklist of stats.
One other con: If you like to play dress-up with your toons like I do, you will end up with a checklist of lower-level gear to brow-beat your achievement buddy into helping you farm. Ahami WILL be getting the old school dungeon set for RP. Onashne will likely be following suit. Luckily, most of the hunter and mage armor is hideous, so I won't have to farm crap four times in a row.
Stealth Patch
According to MMO Champion, patch 3.0.9 hits Tuesday.
Shamans
Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)
I don't really care about this too much, not being enhancement, but if I were enhancement, I'd probably be sad.
Hunter
Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
Ooh, looks like they are already making good on their promise to unbreak BM a little. Hopefully this will help a tiny bit, though I'm still excited about the upcoming possible new tier to BM pet talents.
There are a couple of pet changes too (tiny nerfs to fire breath and poison spit), but not for cats, so phew.
The druid changes don't affect me, and I haven't played my mage at arcane enough to have any opinion at all on the changes — or really to even know what they mean. Having played a healer and a hunter, I at least understand the "language" of druid abilities and talents enough to figure things out. But my mage is pretty different than anything else I've played before, so at level 24, I still don't really "get" the class yet.
Looks like pallies get some nice buffs, and they and priests no longer have to worry about dispels of their personal buffs.
Shamans
Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)
I don't really care about this too much, not being enhancement, but if I were enhancement, I'd probably be sad.
Hunter
Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
Ooh, looks like they are already making good on their promise to unbreak BM a little. Hopefully this will help a tiny bit, though I'm still excited about the upcoming possible new tier to BM pet talents.
There are a couple of pet changes too (tiny nerfs to fire breath and poison spit), but not for cats, so phew.
The druid changes don't affect me, and I haven't played my mage at arcane enough to have any opinion at all on the changes — or really to even know what they mean. Having played a healer and a hunter, I at least understand the "language" of druid abilities and talents enough to figure things out. But my mage is pretty different than anything else I've played before, so at level 24, I still don't really "get" the class yet.
Looks like pallies get some nice buffs, and they and priests no longer have to worry about dispels of their personal buffs.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Essay question
I'm not really stealing this idea from Too Many Annas; she has five questions, first off. :-D
But I have a question for you all, to answer here or on your own blogs or whatever: Why did your characters choose to take up the professions they did? How do they feel about their professional choices now?
See, I finally just turned to RP to answer my Great Alchemy vs. Leatherworking Conundrum, and I'm sticking with leatherworking. It seems more "druidy" (using all parts of the animal), and after Hillsbrad, I think seeing the evil alchemy can be used for has turned Onashne off to its benefits. She wants no part of it, especially since she would most likely have to learn certain recipes from the Forsaken, and while she feels sorry for their situation, she doesn't really care much for them in general.
Of course, this got me thinking about Kamai's profession choices, specifically tailoring — would a troll mage who likes engineering (i.e., a mad scientist type) really want to sew pretty dresses? Or would she be mixing up potions just to see what happens? As her personality grows, both she (and myself) are growing a little less satisfied with tailoring as a profession, and she does not have the moral problems with the Forsaken that Onashne (or Ideale) would. Expect this to turn into future blog drama.
As for Ahami and Ideale?
Ideale loves jewelcrafting, not so much for the rings and other ornaments, but because she is intensely satisfied when she cuts a gem just right. She's not overly fond of mining, but it annoys her father and saves her money on supplies, so she doesn't mind it as much as she could. Plus she would hate to stumble across a vein of precious metals and leave it behind out in the wild somewhere.
Ahami loves herbalism, as a healer. She finds it peaceful — something much of her life really isn't — and as an added bonus, it's extremely useful. She also loves inscription, but feels a bit guilty when she mills herbs for ink that could be going to medicines or something else, even knowing that the glyphs and scrolls she creates can help people, too.
But I have a question for you all, to answer here or on your own blogs or whatever: Why did your characters choose to take up the professions they did? How do they feel about their professional choices now?
See, I finally just turned to RP to answer my Great Alchemy vs. Leatherworking Conundrum, and I'm sticking with leatherworking. It seems more "druidy" (using all parts of the animal), and after Hillsbrad, I think seeing the evil alchemy can be used for has turned Onashne off to its benefits. She wants no part of it, especially since she would most likely have to learn certain recipes from the Forsaken, and while she feels sorry for their situation, she doesn't really care much for them in general.
Of course, this got me thinking about Kamai's profession choices, specifically tailoring — would a troll mage who likes engineering (i.e., a mad scientist type) really want to sew pretty dresses? Or would she be mixing up potions just to see what happens? As her personality grows, both she (and myself) are growing a little less satisfied with tailoring as a profession, and she does not have the moral problems with the Forsaken that Onashne (or Ideale) would. Expect this to turn into future blog drama.
As for Ahami and Ideale?
Ideale loves jewelcrafting, not so much for the rings and other ornaments, but because she is intensely satisfied when she cuts a gem just right. She's not overly fond of mining, but it annoys her father and saves her money on supplies, so she doesn't mind it as much as she could. Plus she would hate to stumble across a vein of precious metals and leave it behind out in the wild somewhere.
Ahami loves herbalism, as a healer. She finds it peaceful — something much of her life really isn't — and as an added bonus, it's extremely useful. She also loves inscription, but feels a bit guilty when she mills herbs for ink that could be going to medicines or something else, even knowing that the glyphs and scrolls she creates can help people, too.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Leatherworking vs. Alchemy vs. Skinning
And then I remembered WoWWiki and WoWHead. I am supposed to be at the movies right now, but we missed the first showing, and next one's not for another two hours, so research time. I still haven't made a decision, but I figured I would lay out my thoughts in case anyone else is considering a switch/trying to decide what to pick.
It seems like, unlike in BC, there are not a lot of BOP crafted items in the armor professions (or at least in leatherworking and tailoring, the two I have looked at).
My guild has a handful of leatherworkers. Between skinning on Onashne and the gathering professions on my other toons, I doubt I will have problems gathering necessary mats to get whatever I need craftified by one of them as far as armor goes. However, there are certain enchants to bracers and such that only leatherworkers can use. Fur Lining — Spellpower adds spellpower (what a twist!) and there is some lovely +resil and +stam leg armor, which could be super handy out the gate at level 80. Handier than spellthread? I do not know. But it's a nice option to keep open.
Considering how in love I am with the Inscription shoulder enchants for Ahami (WTB head enchants also plz), this stuff might be the deal-maker, and I'd be able to make the BOE epics and some nice leg armor kits for Ideale as well (Ahami's already covered).
Leg armor kits seem to sell quite well, as do the crafted level 78 gear sets, so I don't think this will hurt my money-making ability at all. On the other hand, aside from the PVP kit, none of the leg armor seems all that useful for Onashne herself. Though with Kamai an up-and-coming tailor, that doesn't worry me too greatly.
Alchemy does not have too much to offer on its own. I could make and sell flasks and such, but that would require farming the mats — skinning is much quicker than herbing. It'd be nice to help out the guild by stocking up the bank now and then, but like leatherworking, we have a handful of alchemists, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. On its own, the only things alchemy offers are Mixology — more handy for PVE than battleground PVP, I think — and the Mercurial Alchemist Stone, which is not really the most awesome trinket I can think of.
If Onashne were going to be my only 80 on the server, the choice would be obvious. However, I also have Ideale. Ideale is a jewelcrafter, and alchemy offers Transmute: Earthsiege Diamond and Transmute: Skyflare Diamond, along with the elemental transmutes. This is one of the reasons I originally wanted it for Ahami, before I actually found out what Inscription was and how cool it was. And on the side, I am also leveling Kamai, an engineer, who will someday have a mote extractor, making the elemental transmutes quite useful, especially with Ideale's mining, in turning relatively cheap Elementals, like earth, into ones that sell for big bucks, like fire. This could rake in all kinds of gold and be very, very handy as far as supplying folks with gems and mats.
One other thing to consider: Most of the high-level alchemy recipes are discovery or research based, while the leatherworking ones can be purchased fairly easily. While I like researching on Ahami, it is also frustrating to spend a month trying to get a specific glyph while a bunch of ones you don't want drop, then shelling out the gold to buy it on the AH, then getting it through research two days later. It's also annoying to have to trade for Snowfall Ink all the time just to do my stupid research. I'm not the most patient person. If I want something, I want it now, please. I don't want to have to go farm four stacks of herbs to get the one reagent I need, then have it not even give me the recipe I want and have to wait 20 hours to repeat the whole process. So leatherworking might be more relaxing.
Skinning ... will not be very useful as pure resto. But as hybrid resto/boomkin or with a boomkin off-spec when/if dual-speccing ever happens, the extra crit could be handy. And it will be nice to be able to farm my own mats for armor kits and stuff, plus will add to leatherworking's profitability. If I'm having to buy leather off the AH all the time, then I'm gonna be broke as a joke.
If I had another skinner, I would take both leatherworking and alchemy, but I don't, nor do I want to give up a profession on one of my 80s or on Kamai for skinning. If I level Silang, I will have another skinner — but then I'll have a high level alchemist anyway.
If I stay with leatherworking, then I stay with skinning. If I switch to alchemy, I will stick with skinning as I level and rethink it later on. But I'm still debating whether I should go with the choice that offers enhancements for one character, or the one that benefits my current and future profession network the most.
It seems like, unlike in BC, there are not a lot of BOP crafted items in the armor professions (or at least in leatherworking and tailoring, the two I have looked at).
My guild has a handful of leatherworkers. Between skinning on Onashne and the gathering professions on my other toons, I doubt I will have problems gathering necessary mats to get whatever I need craftified by one of them as far as armor goes. However, there are certain enchants to bracers and such that only leatherworkers can use. Fur Lining — Spellpower adds spellpower (what a twist!) and there is some lovely +resil and +stam leg armor, which could be super handy out the gate at level 80. Handier than spellthread? I do not know. But it's a nice option to keep open.
Considering how in love I am with the Inscription shoulder enchants for Ahami (WTB head enchants also plz), this stuff might be the deal-maker, and I'd be able to make the BOE epics and some nice leg armor kits for Ideale as well (Ahami's already covered).
Leg armor kits seem to sell quite well, as do the crafted level 78 gear sets, so I don't think this will hurt my money-making ability at all. On the other hand, aside from the PVP kit, none of the leg armor seems all that useful for Onashne herself. Though with Kamai an up-and-coming tailor, that doesn't worry me too greatly.
Alchemy does not have too much to offer on its own. I could make and sell flasks and such, but that would require farming the mats — skinning is much quicker than herbing. It'd be nice to help out the guild by stocking up the bank now and then, but like leatherworking, we have a handful of alchemists, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. On its own, the only things alchemy offers are Mixology — more handy for PVE than battleground PVP, I think — and the Mercurial Alchemist Stone, which is not really the most awesome trinket I can think of.
If Onashne were going to be my only 80 on the server, the choice would be obvious. However, I also have Ideale. Ideale is a jewelcrafter, and alchemy offers Transmute: Earthsiege Diamond and Transmute: Skyflare Diamond, along with the elemental transmutes. This is one of the reasons I originally wanted it for Ahami, before I actually found out what Inscription was and how cool it was. And on the side, I am also leveling Kamai, an engineer, who will someday have a mote extractor, making the elemental transmutes quite useful, especially with Ideale's mining, in turning relatively cheap Elementals, like earth, into ones that sell for big bucks, like fire. This could rake in all kinds of gold and be very, very handy as far as supplying folks with gems and mats.
One other thing to consider: Most of the high-level alchemy recipes are discovery or research based, while the leatherworking ones can be purchased fairly easily. While I like researching on Ahami, it is also frustrating to spend a month trying to get a specific glyph while a bunch of ones you don't want drop, then shelling out the gold to buy it on the AH, then getting it through research two days later. It's also annoying to have to trade for Snowfall Ink all the time just to do my stupid research. I'm not the most patient person. If I want something, I want it now, please. I don't want to have to go farm four stacks of herbs to get the one reagent I need, then have it not even give me the recipe I want and have to wait 20 hours to repeat the whole process. So leatherworking might be more relaxing.
Skinning ... will not be very useful as pure resto. But as hybrid resto/boomkin or with a boomkin off-spec when/if dual-speccing ever happens, the extra crit could be handy. And it will be nice to be able to farm my own mats for armor kits and stuff, plus will add to leatherworking's profitability. If I'm having to buy leather off the AH all the time, then I'm gonna be broke as a joke.
If I had another skinner, I would take both leatherworking and alchemy, but I don't, nor do I want to give up a profession on one of my 80s or on Kamai for skinning. If I level Silang, I will have another skinner — but then I'll have a high level alchemist anyway.
If I stay with leatherworking, then I stay with skinning. If I switch to alchemy, I will stick with skinning as I level and rethink it later on. But I'm still debating whether I should go with the choice that offers enhancements for one character, or the one that benefits my current and future profession network the most.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Help!
Okay, so. Do I go with alchemy on my druid, or stick with leatherworking?
I should point out that I have or am soon to have all of the crafted pieces I need for both my hunter and my shaman — a friend has already promised to make them all and I have most of the mats, I just need to shell out for some Frozen Orbs and farm some Eternals.
Alchemy seems like it would be more useful for the guild, but I'm already at 180 leatherworking and have a lot of the low-level recipes. Which I bought off of the AH. And I have a bunch more saved for use later, along with a ton of leather.
I also have alchemy on my death knight, but I don't think you can train it to 450 unless you're 70, right? And she's probably staying at 59 until they implement leveling via battlegrounds. But I don't know what else I would take on her profession-wise, except maybe blacksmithing and engineering if I leave her as a twink.
I love farming meat, cooking things and dropping it in the guild bank or selling it on the AH. That's how I make the vast majority of my gold in game, actually, and one of my favorite things to do in game. So I might enjoy alchemy more, and it would definitely be more useful and make more money at end-game. Although I've seen the Stormhide stuff going for 150-300g a piece.
I could help my guild more with flasks and crap, which would make me happy because I feel like since I don't raid or PVE much, I don't contribute very much. Plus then I could sell all the leather I farm for moneys as well, or give it to guildies leveling leatherworking.
Tell me what to do! I can't decide!
I should point out that I have or am soon to have all of the crafted pieces I need for both my hunter and my shaman — a friend has already promised to make them all and I have most of the mats, I just need to shell out for some Frozen Orbs and farm some Eternals.
Alchemy seems like it would be more useful for the guild, but I'm already at 180 leatherworking and have a lot of the low-level recipes. Which I bought off of the AH. And I have a bunch more saved for use later, along with a ton of leather.
I also have alchemy on my death knight, but I don't think you can train it to 450 unless you're 70, right? And she's probably staying at 59 until they implement leveling via battlegrounds. But I don't know what else I would take on her profession-wise, except maybe blacksmithing and engineering if I leave her as a twink.
I love farming meat, cooking things and dropping it in the guild bank or selling it on the AH. That's how I make the vast majority of my gold in game, actually, and one of my favorite things to do in game. So I might enjoy alchemy more, and it would definitely be more useful and make more money at end-game. Although I've seen the Stormhide stuff going for 150-300g a piece.
I could help my guild more with flasks and crap, which would make me happy because I feel like since I don't raid or PVE much, I don't contribute very much. Plus then I could sell all the leather I farm for moneys as well, or give it to guildies leveling leatherworking.
Tell me what to do! I can't decide!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
WANT ARROWS
Patch notes are out for hunters.
Okay, I know this is probably just me — actually, I'm positive this is only me — but I LIKE buying ammo and having a quiver.
*mumble* Plus I just got a brand new quiver.
Yeah, I know it costs money, but — well, so does real life ammo. I know it eats bag space, but why not just make it an extra slot like the key ring? Plus, what are they going to do about all of the engineering ammo recipes and leatherworking quiver and gun pouch recipes in the game? Not to mention the rep vendor stuff.
And now we're gonna have to listen to warlocks bitch about their soul pouches and not have a valid response. Unless the warlock changes I paid absolutely no attention to fixed this somehow.
And now it's gonna be a lot harder to weed the huntards out of groups because no longer will they be the ones who run out of ammo before the first boss. Although maybe this will cut down a little on melee hunters.
Sorry for being grumpy, but the pet changes and Disengage are, quite honestly, the only changes to the hunter class I have actually liked. Every time another patch comes out, I find myself being all chipper and cheerful and, "Oh, well, we needed the nerfs. Oh, well, this will up my PVP survivability. Oh, well, not having to learn pet skills by taming wild animals means we get another usable stable slot."
Dammit, Blizz, stop tempting me to focus more on Ahami or level the baby mage and druid instead of logging on to Ideale. It's not going to work. I love playing my hunter too much.
I really just need time to settle into the changes. I'll get over them. I have gotten over every other change since 3.0. I just like to grouse about them.
On a side note, I am looking forward to the new tier in pet talents. It would be nice to have a way to max out Cinny's DPS instead of just throwing points in random crap I don't even use because heck, what else am I going to do? Plus this could help to alleviate the BM DPS nerf, and brings the tree back to what it was supposed to be, one that focuses as much on pet DPS as the hunter's personal DPS.
And the shaman changes? Hooray! Nothing major aside from combining a few totems to make them slightly more useful and flexible. I'm really excited about combining Healing Stream and Mana Spring totems — I always find myself torn about which to choose. And I'm excited about the chain lightning change because a.) MOAR LIGHTNINGZ and b.) maybe it will hurt less when it hits me. :-D I loooove the shaman changes.
Kamai and Onashne are not really high enough in level for the changes to matter much, but since Kamai will probably stay fire spec into end game (I've played with frost and arcane, and I do want to try frost again with the Water Elemental, but I love setting things on fire), the extra PVP survivability will be nice. And being able to cast more stuff while shapeshifted as a druid is always a plus.
Okay, I know this is probably just me — actually, I'm positive this is only me — but I LIKE buying ammo and having a quiver.
*mumble* Plus I just got a brand new quiver.
Yeah, I know it costs money, but — well, so does real life ammo. I know it eats bag space, but why not just make it an extra slot like the key ring? Plus, what are they going to do about all of the engineering ammo recipes and leatherworking quiver and gun pouch recipes in the game? Not to mention the rep vendor stuff.
And now we're gonna have to listen to warlocks bitch about their soul pouches and not have a valid response. Unless the warlock changes I paid absolutely no attention to fixed this somehow.
And now it's gonna be a lot harder to weed the huntards out of groups because no longer will they be the ones who run out of ammo before the first boss. Although maybe this will cut down a little on melee hunters.
Sorry for being grumpy, but the pet changes and Disengage are, quite honestly, the only changes to the hunter class I have actually liked. Every time another patch comes out, I find myself being all chipper and cheerful and, "Oh, well, we needed the nerfs. Oh, well, this will up my PVP survivability. Oh, well, not having to learn pet skills by taming wild animals means we get another usable stable slot."
Dammit, Blizz, stop tempting me to focus more on Ahami or level the baby mage and druid instead of logging on to Ideale. It's not going to work. I love playing my hunter too much.
I really just need time to settle into the changes. I'll get over them. I have gotten over every other change since 3.0. I just like to grouse about them.
On a side note, I am looking forward to the new tier in pet talents. It would be nice to have a way to max out Cinny's DPS instead of just throwing points in random crap I don't even use because heck, what else am I going to do? Plus this could help to alleviate the BM DPS nerf, and brings the tree back to what it was supposed to be, one that focuses as much on pet DPS as the hunter's personal DPS.
And the shaman changes? Hooray! Nothing major aside from combining a few totems to make them slightly more useful and flexible. I'm really excited about combining Healing Stream and Mana Spring totems — I always find myself torn about which to choose. And I'm excited about the chain lightning change because a.) MOAR LIGHTNINGZ and b.) maybe it will hurt less when it hits me. :-D I loooove the shaman changes.
Kamai and Onashne are not really high enough in level for the changes to matter much, but since Kamai will probably stay fire spec into end game (I've played with frost and arcane, and I do want to try frost again with the Water Elemental, but I love setting things on fire), the extra PVP survivability will be nice. And being able to cast more stuff while shapeshifted as a druid is always a plus.
True cat stories: It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye
So I was playing with Sparrow this morning, and she was up on the couch and I was running a toy up and down teasing her while she gnawed on my fingers. Yeah, this is how we play.
Anyway, I found out the hard way that when you have a cat who is as ... enthusiastic ... about playing as Sparrow, you should keep toys as far away from your face as possible. Because Sparrow is known to get a little crazy — she will follow a toy into the air and do literal somersaults for it. She will dive off of the top of the cat tree and scare the crap out of me. She knows no fear and doesn't hold back.
Result?
It doesn't really hurt, though. Except when I washed my face earlier.
Anyway, I found out the hard way that when you have a cat who is as ... enthusiastic ... about playing as Sparrow, you should keep toys as far away from your face as possible. Because Sparrow is known to get a little crazy — she will follow a toy into the air and do literal somersaults for it. She will dive off of the top of the cat tree and scare the crap out of me. She knows no fear and doesn't hold back.
Result?
It doesn't really hurt, though. Except when I washed my face earlier.
Achievements, titles and class quests
I was reading this post at Curse of Senility and it got me thinking. One of the things I was disappointed in with Echoes of Doom was the removal of certain quests or requirements. I am one of those freaks who liked having to tame a beast, learn the skill, and then teach my pet. I love all of the quests that grant abilities, and I'm really disappointed that I will be missing out on some of those with my itty alts.
The quests gave the classes their flavors, I think. While it's certainly convenient to learn things at the trainers, the lore and the idea of learning certain skills from quests always appealed to me.
Since the quests are still in the game, I think it would be neat for Blizz to implement a class-based achievement that requires doing all of the class-specific quest chains. There could be a couple of new ones from 70-80, and maybe a couple of other requirements (i.e., for a hunter one could be to max your bow, crossbow and gun skills). At the end, you get an achievement, with a title to go along with it. The title should be different for Horde and Alliance, of course; Horde paladins would get "Blood Knight," Horde shamans would get "of the Earthen Ring," etc. And Alliance would get their equivalents.
I think that would be a really neat idea, and a way to get people to do these quests for various abilities and spells without forcing it on anyone.
The quests gave the classes their flavors, I think. While it's certainly convenient to learn things at the trainers, the lore and the idea of learning certain skills from quests always appealed to me.
Since the quests are still in the game, I think it would be neat for Blizz to implement a class-based achievement that requires doing all of the class-specific quest chains. There could be a couple of new ones from 70-80, and maybe a couple of other requirements (i.e., for a hunter one could be to max your bow, crossbow and gun skills). At the end, you get an achievement, with a title to go along with it. The title should be different for Horde and Alliance, of course; Horde paladins would get "Blood Knight," Horde shamans would get "of the Earthen Ring," etc. And Alliance would get their equivalents.
I think that would be a really neat idea, and a way to get people to do these quests for various abilities and spells without forcing it on anyone.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Elder title
I don't think Ahami's going to get it. I haven't done a single one of the Northrend instances yet.
I'm actually sad about this. How silly is that?
EDIT: And then I remembered that I was planning on replacing it with the Flame Keeper title at the Midsummer Fire Festival anyway, and then I reminded myself that I can either cram 7 instances into the next seven days or I could work on getting Friendly with the Warsong Outriders and the Defilers and the latter is much more fun, and then I made myself some chili, and now I'm over it.
I'm actually sad about this. How silly is that?
EDIT: And then I remembered that I was planning on replacing it with the Flame Keeper title at the Midsummer Fire Festival anyway, and then I reminded myself that I can either cram 7 instances into the next seven days or I could work on getting Friendly with the Warsong Outriders and the Defilers and the latter is much more fun, and then I made myself some chili, and now I'm over it.
Balance vs. feral
Oh, and balance is definitely more fun than feral. Getting bashed in the face is only fun for so long. But rooting mobs to the ground and then killing them with shinies? It's a blast. Like a cross between a shaman and a mage sans any AOE (wrath instead of lightning, roots instead of frost nova, no 'splosions or chainey stuff).
I do still spend a lot of time bouncing around going, "WHEE, I R CHEETAH" though.
One thing about loving hybrid classes — I desperately want to try some of the hybrid specs floating around out there. I never got to try the resto/elem build for PVP on Ahami, since Echoes of Doom changed it all when she was just barely 60. And right now at 80 I'm having way too much fun with Riptide and (since the patch) instant Ghost Wolf to try a hybrid spec yet. I like going "Scamper scamper scamper SPLOOSH scamper scamper scamper chain heal SPLOOSH" too much.
But looking at the resto druid, HoTs seem to be the most fun, and while speccing 51 points in resto would be pretty good as a healer, a resto/balance hybrid spec might make me a bit more flexible in the battlegrounds, where there are sometimes no healers and sometimes a boatload of them.
I really love healing, though. It always looked fun, but I never expected to love it as much as I do. I love the ranged pewpew very much. It's definitely more fun for questing and wandering solo around the world, and I really do like standing behind everyone and shooting the peoples in the face, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be leveling a magey if that part wasn't fun. But healing is where it's at as far as I'm concerned. (PVP healing, anyway — PVE healing stops being interesting the second you get the hang of a fight. I wish I could bring myself to like PVE sometimes. World PVP comes and goes in cycles even on VeCo, but it seems like people are always doing that PVE thing.) I'd totally level a priest and a pally, too, if leveling holy didn't suck and their other specs weren't boring. Or if you could start them from 55 like a death knight.
Really, I don't know why Blizz doesn't let you just roll one character of any class at level 55 for each level 55 character you have. So if you had two characters over level 55 (a shaman and a hunter, for example), you could roll two characters on the same server (a mage and a druid, perhaps?) and they would start at 55.
But then you'd be able to roll four more characters at 55 unless they wrote something into the game to keep track. And that would probably require a ton of patchiness or a new expansion. Never mind.
I do still spend a lot of time bouncing around going, "WHEE, I R CHEETAH" though.
One thing about loving hybrid classes — I desperately want to try some of the hybrid specs floating around out there. I never got to try the resto/elem build for PVP on Ahami, since Echoes of Doom changed it all when she was just barely 60. And right now at 80 I'm having way too much fun with Riptide and (since the patch) instant Ghost Wolf to try a hybrid spec yet. I like going "Scamper scamper scamper SPLOOSH scamper scamper scamper chain heal SPLOOSH" too much.
But looking at the resto druid, HoTs seem to be the most fun, and while speccing 51 points in resto would be pretty good as a healer, a resto/balance hybrid spec might make me a bit more flexible in the battlegrounds, where there are sometimes no healers and sometimes a boatload of them.
I really love healing, though. It always looked fun, but I never expected to love it as much as I do. I love the ranged pewpew very much. It's definitely more fun for questing and wandering solo around the world, and I really do like standing behind everyone and shooting the peoples in the face, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be leveling a magey if that part wasn't fun. But healing is where it's at as far as I'm concerned. (PVP healing, anyway — PVE healing stops being interesting the second you get the hang of a fight. I wish I could bring myself to like PVE sometimes. World PVP comes and goes in cycles even on VeCo, but it seems like people are always doing that PVE thing.) I'd totally level a priest and a pally, too, if leveling holy didn't suck and their other specs weren't boring. Or if you could start them from 55 like a death knight.
Really, I don't know why Blizz doesn't let you just roll one character of any class at level 55 for each level 55 character you have. So if you had two characters over level 55 (a shaman and a hunter, for example), you could roll two characters on the same server (a mage and a druid, perhaps?) and they would start at 55.
But then you'd be able to roll four more characters at 55 unless they wrote something into the game to keep track. And that would probably require a ton of patchiness or a new expansion. Never mind.
Resto shaman pre-raid gear
I was bored at work a few weeks ago, and even though I don't do that PVE thing, I DO like doing research, and we have a few to-be-resto shamans on their way to 80 in the guild, so ... I made a list of heroic drops and crafted gear to look for before hitting up raids. I've posted rep rewards here before, I believe, but this site has a handy checklist. Didn't check quest rewards yet, because I forgot until just now. Maybe if it's slow this week I'll do that.
Crafted Gear
Wispcloak (Tailoring, Back)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41609
Revenant's Breastplate (Leatherworking, Chest)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43461
Revenant's Treads (Leatherworking, Feet)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43469
Titanium Spellshock Necklace* (Jewelcrafting, Neck)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42647
Titanium Spellshock Ring* (Jewelcrafting, Finger)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42644
And of course the Stormhide set.
BOE Gear
Benefactor's Gauntlets (Hands)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40302
Grips of the Warming Heart (Hands)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37781
Zom's Crackling Bulwark (Shield)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44313
Glowworm Cavern Bindings (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35615
Bands of the Sky Ring* (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37365
Dragonflayer Seer's Bindings* (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37069
Epaulets of Market Row (Shoulders)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37116
Helm of the Lightning Halls (Head)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37857
Je'Tze's Bell (Trinket)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37835
Heroic Drops
Back
Ancient Dragon Spirit Cape - Cache of Eregos, The Oculus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37291
Chest
Moragg's Chestguard - Moragg, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43410
Dalronn's Jerkin - Skarvald the Constructor, Utgarde Keep
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37184
Scaled Armor of Drakos - Drakos, The Oculus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37256
Feet
Sabatons of the Ages - Tribunal Chest, Halls of Stone
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37654
Legs
Frozen Forest Kilt - Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37155
Legguards of Nature's Power* - Dark Runed Chest, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37695
Patroller's War-Kilt* - General Bjarngrim, Halls of Lightning
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37818
Hands
Lightning-Charged Gloves - Maiden of Grief, Halls of Stone
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38615
Fiery Obelisk Handguards* - Herald Volazj, Akhn'kahet: The Old Kingdom
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37623
Cracked Epoch Grasps* - Chrono-Lord Epoch, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37686
Shoulders
Spaulders of the Violet Hold - Cyanigosa, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37875
Mantle of Discarded Ways* - King Ymiron, Utgarde Pinnacle
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37398
Wrists
Limb Regeneration Bracers - The Prophet, Drak'Tharon Keep
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37788
Bands of Channeled Energy - Grand Maguc Telestra, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37138
Waist
Mail Girdle of the Audient Earth - Loken, Halls of Lightning
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37855
Girdle of the Ethereal - Xevozz, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37868
Slad'ran's Coiled Cord - Slad'ran, Gundrak
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37628
Weapon
War Mace of Unrequited Love - Keristasza, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37169
Gavel of the Fleshcrafter - Salramm, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37681
Shield
Facade Shield of Glyphs - Krik'thir, Azjol-Nerub
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37216
* I included items that had crit (marked with an asterisk), although I tend to think of those pieces as elemental gear. I like haste or mp5 better, myself, but given this discussion of haste vs. crit on World of Matticus (linked in first post), I figured I might as well include them too.
Crafted Gear
Wispcloak (Tailoring, Back)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41609
Revenant's Breastplate (Leatherworking, Chest)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43461
Revenant's Treads (Leatherworking, Feet)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43469
Titanium Spellshock Necklace* (Jewelcrafting, Neck)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42647
Titanium Spellshock Ring* (Jewelcrafting, Finger)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42644
And of course the Stormhide set.
BOE Gear
Benefactor's Gauntlets (Hands)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40302
Grips of the Warming Heart (Hands)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37781
Zom's Crackling Bulwark (Shield)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44313
Glowworm Cavern Bindings (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35615
Bands of the Sky Ring* (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37365
Dragonflayer Seer's Bindings* (Wrists)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37069
Epaulets of Market Row (Shoulders)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37116
Helm of the Lightning Halls (Head)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37857
Je'Tze's Bell (Trinket)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37835
Heroic Drops
Back
Ancient Dragon Spirit Cape - Cache of Eregos, The Oculus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37291
Chest
Moragg's Chestguard - Moragg, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43410
Dalronn's Jerkin - Skarvald the Constructor, Utgarde Keep
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37184
Scaled Armor of Drakos - Drakos, The Oculus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37256
Feet
Sabatons of the Ages - Tribunal Chest, Halls of Stone
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37654
Legs
Frozen Forest Kilt - Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37155
Legguards of Nature's Power* - Dark Runed Chest, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37695
Patroller's War-Kilt* - General Bjarngrim, Halls of Lightning
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37818
Hands
Lightning-Charged Gloves - Maiden of Grief, Halls of Stone
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38615
Fiery Obelisk Handguards* - Herald Volazj, Akhn'kahet: The Old Kingdom
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37623
Cracked Epoch Grasps* - Chrono-Lord Epoch, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37686
Shoulders
Spaulders of the Violet Hold - Cyanigosa, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37875
Mantle of Discarded Ways* - King Ymiron, Utgarde Pinnacle
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37398
Wrists
Limb Regeneration Bracers - The Prophet, Drak'Tharon Keep
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37788
Bands of Channeled Energy - Grand Maguc Telestra, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37138
Waist
Mail Girdle of the Audient Earth - Loken, Halls of Lightning
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37855
Girdle of the Ethereal - Xevozz, The Violet Hold
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37868
Slad'ran's Coiled Cord - Slad'ran, Gundrak
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37628
Weapon
War Mace of Unrequited Love - Keristasza, The Nexus
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37169
Gavel of the Fleshcrafter - Salramm, Culling of Stratholme
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37681
Shield
Facade Shield of Glyphs - Krik'thir, Azjol-Nerub
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37216
* I included items that had crit (marked with an asterisk), although I tend to think of those pieces as elemental gear. I like haste or mp5 better, myself, but given this discussion of haste vs. crit on World of Matticus (linked in first post), I figured I might as well include them too.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Ding, fries are done
The new to-do list:
1. Finish up the achievements for Elder Ahami. I'm going to have to *shudder* PUG for this.
2. Rep for both. I need to open up the dailies in Icecrown on Ahami, too — I stalled out in Storm Peaks on her and didn't even realize they were there.
3. Do lots of quests for mad moneys so I can get an epic flyer for Ideale and head back to Sholazar for a sweep every couple days.
4. Kill people in Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch a lot.
5. Alts!
Playing here and there on the side, I think I might have straightened out the leveling/twinking rosters.
Kamai the mage will definitely be going to 80. She's just so much darned fun! I love setting things on fire. I have goals for her. Plus I LOVE engineering and would love to have a character with one of those mote extractors, since I see clouds freaking everywhere.
Onashne the druid will probably be going to 80. I would love a resto druid just to compare the healing styles. Plus I like trees and going /moo. It all depends on whether I can stand the leveling process; I really dislike feral leveling. Balance might be more fun now than it was last time I tried it (level 15). I need to figure out goals for her to keep my interest.
Silang is up in the air. Death knights are fun — but are they fun enough to hold my interest until 80? I don't know. Soloing (or duoing with my spriesty roomie) is just not as fun as running about in PVP. I don't want to tank or melee DPS at 80, either. I'm contemplating speed-leveling either the mage or druid to 50 to catch up with E. and leaving Silang at 59 to just PVP with.
Malisya will be twinking it up, probably in the 30-39 bracket. I have a couple of friends who have twinks at that level, and with death knights and their speedy horses making 60 AV sad, then this might be the way to go.
Also on hold is the level one pally whose name I don't remember. I made her as a joke (long story), but I am hanging onto her because I like her hair (I r dork) and might someday make her a little healadin for the 30-39 bracket.
Daj will be twinking it up also, probably in the 40-49 bracket, but she's on hold until I get my other characters in order. I loooove hunters, and I do want to have a hunter twink (just to have a "finished" hunter), but since I have Ide, Daj is kind of my last priority. Poor Daj.
What happened to the AV twink idea? Well, I've been battlegrounding a bit on Silang, and, well, I hate to say it but I'm part of the problem. Because with all the death knights, the 50-59/51-60 brackets kind of suck now. It seems like a lot of people decided to twink their DKs, too, because hey, at level 58 you come out of the DK starting area in a nice set of blues. Why not? But with the super-speedy horses (with talents, a 58 DK is faster than regular classes on level 60 mounts) and the class's OP-ness, I really can't blame anyone.
But that does kind of take the fun out of the bracket for other classes. I don't want to jump on the "DKs ruined EVERYTHING" bandwagon, but I've seen most other classes go down in seconds every time they rezzed, over and over and over again. And some of them are good, and several of them are twinks. So I might keep Silang there — I think keeping up with three or four 80s will be a little much for me to handle already, and the bracket is still fun as a DK, and I do have the blues and stuff, so why not?
As far as an AV twink healer ... I really, really want to try druid healing at a high enough level to get a real feel for it. But with the changes to AV brought by class changes and DKs, I don't know if it will be fun. (I should point out here that I want to twink to have characters that I never have to work on again, not because I want to be OP. I doubt I will have the best gear or enchants — I'm too cheap. But there's a difference between accepting that you're gonna die in PVP, and slamming your face into a brick wall over and over again.) If I'm gonna get up to the 60s anyway, I might as well go all the way.
Really, that's been the whole fun with Kamai. I never thought I'd like mages, but it's really interesting to play a ranged class that is not a hunter. The bag of tricks is different, but the way they're used is similar, so it's a blast. I'd really like to do the same sort of comparison between a resto druid and a resto shaman.
1. Finish up the achievements for Elder Ahami. I'm going to have to *shudder* PUG for this.
2. Rep for both. I need to open up the dailies in Icecrown on Ahami, too — I stalled out in Storm Peaks on her and didn't even realize they were there.
3. Do lots of quests for mad moneys so I can get an epic flyer for Ideale and head back to Sholazar for a sweep every couple days.
4. Kill people in Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch a lot.
5. Alts!
Playing here and there on the side, I think I might have straightened out the leveling/twinking rosters.
Kamai the mage will definitely be going to 80. She's just so much darned fun! I love setting things on fire. I have goals for her. Plus I LOVE engineering and would love to have a character with one of those mote extractors, since I see clouds freaking everywhere.
Onashne the druid will probably be going to 80. I would love a resto druid just to compare the healing styles. Plus I like trees and going /moo. It all depends on whether I can stand the leveling process; I really dislike feral leveling. Balance might be more fun now than it was last time I tried it (level 15). I need to figure out goals for her to keep my interest.
Silang is up in the air. Death knights are fun — but are they fun enough to hold my interest until 80? I don't know. Soloing (or duoing with my spriesty roomie) is just not as fun as running about in PVP. I don't want to tank or melee DPS at 80, either. I'm contemplating speed-leveling either the mage or druid to 50 to catch up with E. and leaving Silang at 59 to just PVP with.
Malisya will be twinking it up, probably in the 30-39 bracket. I have a couple of friends who have twinks at that level, and with death knights and their speedy horses making 60 AV sad, then this might be the way to go.
Also on hold is the level one pally whose name I don't remember. I made her as a joke (long story), but I am hanging onto her because I like her hair (I r dork) and might someday make her a little healadin for the 30-39 bracket.
Daj will be twinking it up also, probably in the 40-49 bracket, but she's on hold until I get my other characters in order. I loooove hunters, and I do want to have a hunter twink (just to have a "finished" hunter), but since I have Ide, Daj is kind of my last priority. Poor Daj.
What happened to the AV twink idea? Well, I've been battlegrounding a bit on Silang, and, well, I hate to say it but I'm part of the problem. Because with all the death knights, the 50-59/51-60 brackets kind of suck now. It seems like a lot of people decided to twink their DKs, too, because hey, at level 58 you come out of the DK starting area in a nice set of blues. Why not? But with the super-speedy horses (with talents, a 58 DK is faster than regular classes on level 60 mounts) and the class's OP-ness, I really can't blame anyone.
But that does kind of take the fun out of the bracket for other classes. I don't want to jump on the "DKs ruined EVERYTHING" bandwagon, but I've seen most other classes go down in seconds every time they rezzed, over and over and over again. And some of them are good, and several of them are twinks. So I might keep Silang there — I think keeping up with three or four 80s will be a little much for me to handle already, and the bracket is still fun as a DK, and I do have the blues and stuff, so why not?
As far as an AV twink healer ... I really, really want to try druid healing at a high enough level to get a real feel for it. But with the changes to AV brought by class changes and DKs, I don't know if it will be fun. (I should point out here that I want to twink to have characters that I never have to work on again, not because I want to be OP. I doubt I will have the best gear or enchants — I'm too cheap. But there's a difference between accepting that you're gonna die in PVP, and slamming your face into a brick wall over and over again.) If I'm gonna get up to the 60s anyway, I might as well go all the way.
Really, that's been the whole fun with Kamai. I never thought I'd like mages, but it's really interesting to play a ranged class that is not a hunter. The bag of tricks is different, but the way they're used is similar, so it's a blast. I'd really like to do the same sort of comparison between a resto druid and a resto shaman.
It's true
The downside to playing on a laptop: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/
Since I got one of those cooler fan things a few months ago, the burn marks on my left thigh have started to go away, though.
Since I got one of those cooler fan things a few months ago, the burn marks on my left thigh have started to go away, though.
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