Why is it, when I get what I think is a good idea, a dozen people start doing it before my plans come to fruition? I was thinking to myself how I could collect little unbloggable snippets and recommendations together for a weekend post, and suddenly I see it everywhere before my first one goes up.
Oh, well, I’m going to file it under “Great minds think alike” and move along. Here are, in no particular order (even chronologically is pushing it), a number of things that I liked this week.
Amber gets philosophical on Cliques at I Like Bubbles. I’ve been through a situation where cliques – MY clique - was instrumental in Great Drama. I hate drama. It interrupts my favorite things.
I discovered Pike late in the game, so I have less attachment than others. That being said, it’s sad to see a fellow traveler go away / go on hiatus. The final pic is perfect1. Hurry back, Pike, if you can. And if you just can’t get enough, say hello to her at her new linux/geeky blog, Clockwork Hare.
Second only to BRK’s tales of kiting the Fel Reaver into Shatt2, Spicytuna blogged a new kind of dirty trick. Yes, it’s griefing of a sort, I admit it. But it’s griefing with style. Next day, Frost Mage PVP: 101 picks up a subject that I have peripheral interest in from time to time.
Aw, say it ain’t so! Jong, leaving us, again? What of Megs? Quick, somebody set her up a guest post traveling gig or something. Or better yet, maybe Jong will change his mind! I have learned so much from them both.
And Rhii, too? What is going on? Well, not quitting, but when my GF started talking like that, I started making sure I had all my stuff where I could find it. At the same time, Aurdon’s giving his guild a well-deserved mid digit. You had me at “racist /g chat”.
WoW.com’s Addon Spotlight uncovers something I might be interested in: Automaton.
Flora has been pointing excitedly at this article at WoW.com since it popped up in her reader. Finally, a kindred soul that believes that achiements should be hard. Werd.
Look, he’s crawling up my wall / Black and hairy, very small / Now he’s up above my head / Hanging by a little thread / Boris the spider – I’m perversely cheered that somebody else remembers that obscure little ditty.
Hatch and Larisa4 make cromulent observations about the matter of a group photo, a forum post, and the doin’s thereof. See Also: Gabriel’s Greater Internet Dickwad Theory. But, truly? The most shocking aspect is that somebody expected better of forum posters. A hive of scum and villainy, mark my words.
WHU shows that the BM changes in 3.3.3 aren’t really all that. On the other hand, if I can get 8.7K dps, I won’t care.
Apparently there was a Blizzard dev chat on Twitter, but I was feeling poorly and missed it. Fortunately, it’s up on the forums. I may, at some point, go have a read, though the last time I did that sort of analysis, “I” was Flora.
To make it clear: all the voices on this blog live in the same head. The blog subtitle should give it away, but in case that wasn’t clear…
Still, we try to make it flow as if there were a team of distinct individuals living and blogging here. It’s a little game, of sorts, that may or may not have some intrinsic value, at least to me.
The one thing that kills this suspension of disbelief – for me, anyway – is posting an entry as, say, Flora, getting comments, and then seeing my mustachioed countenance looking back from her comment box. Well, that’s my gravatar, what am I to do?
Gravatars are cool, but they’re tied to email addresses, and I’m not that thrilled by obtaining and maintaining twelve (at current count) email addresses.
GMail, however, for whatever reason, has an answer.
If you look at the most recent post, you’ll notice that Jasra’s responded to one comment, and she has her own gravatar. If you had admin access, like I do, you’d see that she has an unusual email address: grimmtooth+jasra at gmail. This is my email – grimmtooth at gmail – with her name added with a plus sign.
Turns out you can do that with any name, and most email-keyed services do indeed see these different email addresses as unique to each other. Thus, Flora and Jas both currently have gravatars, and more will be added as needed. They could even have their own Facebook pages and Twitter accounts if I really wanted to get silly.
There are other benefits, too. For example, I can filter emails to my toons based on the t0-address, and then sort them accordingly.
Naturally, this assumes you use gmail. If not, you’re on your own.
I hope this proves useful to some of the other bloggish-rp-ish beings out there. Happy blogging!
A couple of nights ago, I dragged my undergeared Dwarven butt through a number of instances, Heroic and otherwise, specced out as BM, and while I can’t claim to have output to rival our first-tier raiders, my output was consistent enough to warrant a comment from the GM. A month ago, I was struggling to maintain 2K dps. This weekend, 3K was consistent and I peaked at 4K at one point.
So what’s the deal? What am I doing differently?
In essence, I’m playing this true to what I love. Rather than struggle with SV, I’ve fallen back into the warm and familiar embrace of Beast Mastery, and as a result, I’m getting numbers that are at least satisfactory enough for me to be happy.
Now, I will say up front that I have conducted objective tests on this, and SV is still a higher damage bringer than BM, but the margin is slim. I could widen that margin quite a bit by regemming and so forth, as right now I am emphasizing RAP, as is right for a BM hunter. Survival depends more on Agility to give its numbers a boost. So let’s get that out of the way right now: I am not claiming that BM is better than SV. I’m saying it is better for me.
This is where that “being true to yourself” part comes in.
I started out as an MM hunter, and Fai for a while was SV (pre WotLK). But when BM became a viable build in BC, and I gave it a try, I knew I had something special. I’m comfortable here. I know the nuances, the tricks, how to move around and keep it delivering, how to get more from my pet than just have it chewing on the boss’ ass, and so forth. It all just clicks in a way that neither of the other specs did.
SV and MM may give higher numbers, but only if played right. I can technically play both “right”, but it’s always been a struggle to stay in the groove with those two builds. They feel haphazard, strung together out of odd parts that don’t quite fit together well, but at a distance give the illusion of being integral.
The other thing that I think affects this is my playstyle. I can be a little more mobile as BM, it seems, without losing as much output as I would with MM or SV1. The rotations are longer and more involved, for example. After each move, there’s always a brief period where you have to evaluate whether your stings need refreshed, and so on. There’s more of that going on with SV and MM than there is with BM.
Yes, I am saying that BM’s rotation is simpler. Only an idiot would say otherwise. But that does bring some advantages with it other than appealing to the Alfred E. Neuman crowd, as someone has hinted without coming right out and saying it. Simplicity has its benefits, and I don’t care if someone feels the need to look down on me for liking it. Complexity isn’t better unless it brings solid benefits. I think the benefits are somewhat less than are hinted at, though the numbers won’t back me up on it.
A long time ago I mentioned our MM part-time raider’s propensity for pulling aggro at the drop of a hat, his ineffective trapping technique, and so forth. Well, this isn’t BC anymore, and trapping is something that’s fallen by the wayside, but the kernal of the statement remains true; a good BM hunter brings more to the table than just damage. Damage without pulling aggro, for example. The ability to peel the beast off the boss and onto something chewing the healer’s face, without stopping DPS. The ability to break things up a little with one or two well-placed traps2.
So, the bottom line for this long and windy spiel is that sometimes, you gotta say screw the stats, I’m going with what fits me best. For, while there may be a 20% gap between SV and BM damage statistically, that will never be the case, once again, for me.
I think that’s true of many people for many specs. Maybe you’ve always fancied Affliction as the most fun spec for your warlock. Maybe you prefer Frost for the mage, and always have. If the gap isn’t that huge, and your raid isn’t marginal, what’s the harm? So it takes just a little longer to down the boss … but the boss, it is downed.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The consequences of this choice are immediately obvious to me. I had a blast, a really good time bounding around with the stompasaurus, following my heart. No, not so much as to want to change my mind on raiding – that’s gone too sour for me – but if I were called, at least I’d be more enthusiastic 3.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Trinkets! One thing I am sorely lacking is trinkets! I am toting a blue and a green around, and I haven’t replaced them in forever because there are no trinkets out there with RAP. I was very excited when I saw that Scattered Shots was covering this topic, but then I was sad when I saw the conclusion that there just wasn’t anything up there with RAP. But at least now I know that I should give up on that and find some suitable compromise.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Last night, I obtained my first real holiday achievement; Call me Elder Grimm if you must, for that title is mine. I was hoping to complete the Love is in the Air achivement, as well, but I encountered a problem with the rocket achievement that required me to retry it four times before I got it. That was sixty tokens out the window, which set me back on the other components. Well, maybe next year.
I know, that makes absolutely no sense at all considering that the three big guns for SV are insta-shots [↩]
Did you know that if you MD on the tank, and then put an explosive trap at his feet, that the trap damage all MDs to him? True story! [↩]
Yeah, there’s some behind the scenes politics I’m not talking about here. It just is, and that’s that, and blogging it just isn’t appropriate. [↩]
You guys (Blizz) spent the better part of all of BC convincing us that that was, indeed, the intent, design, and raison d’etre of the entire Beastmaster spec! Now is hardly the time to say that you didn’t really mean it. Fer Mog’s sake, ya gave us Exotic pets on top of everything else! This screams out dependent on the pet, don’t you think?
Yes! Yes, I do want to be dependent on my pet, a thousand and one times yes. It’s what sets us apart from MM and SV1. I think I’m safe speaking for the Demon warlocks that they, too, are just dandy with the idea of coupling their DPS to the demon2.
Listen, I want to improve my DPS contribution as much as the next huntard. But I don’t want to do it if that means being the same thing as MM or SV with just a different shot rotation. That’s boring.
BM I am, and BM I be, and I don’t care if I don’t see the inside of another raid dungeon because of it. BM is the heart and soul of the class. It deserves to be treated at least equally with the others, and on its terms, not theirs3.
I dunno, sounds almost like I could toss AuctionLite completely.
Regarding hunter changes: not much to say, but they didn’t have much to say, either.
I wonder if the multilevel instance map thing will work for old instances. Five gold says it won’t.
I have nothing to say about the BG changes, though I suspect the hardcore PvPers do.
Aside from the disparity in the contribution to any raid we may wish to attend [↩]
Heck, the whole talent tree was shaken up drastically in 3.0 for that very reason – e.g. the oddity of a DEMON warlock sacrificing his or her demon to get moar DPS. Remember that? Wasn’t that odd? Didn’t it make sense to couple the Demonology warlock’s abilities more tightly to the idea of having a pet that was alive? [↩]
Come to think of it, why is SV more or less a clone of MM with a different rotation? I tried SV prior to 3.0 and it was a blast, but with a very distinct and fun playstyle. It’s my alternate spec, now, and I have to say that I’m not impressed with the play-style, numbers be damned. [↩]
Picked up over at Warcraft Hunter’s Union, here’s an awesome video done as a response to the Discovery Channel’s “Boom de yada” video, starring Azeroth and a cast of dozens. The production is topnotch, the acting clever, and the visuals are just stunning – would that the real WoW looked like that.
Keep your eyes peeled for some familiar faces, if you’re a fan of WoW Machinama.
Embedded here for your convenience, but please do click through for the high-res version, you’ll be glad you did.
Frostheim’s article notwithstanding, I’ve gone back to BM for heroics and the like since, despite his opinions and samplings, my purely empirical tests show that, with the gear I have, BM gives me moar Dee Pee Ess. Oh, I’m sure that he’s right in the long run, but re-gemming and re-enchanting on faith is an expensive proposition. All that RAP replaced with AGI is pretty much what it comes down to.
Geared as I am, however (including – dear me! – one green trinket!) I’m hitting close to 3K nowadays. I am as surprised as most at that turn of events, it wasn’t that long ago that 2K was hard to sustain.
Laser Kitty still isn’t cutting it for the big numbers, though. I am sad at this.
On a related front, I am going to rename my stompasaurus from “Reaganomics” to “RawrRawrRawr”, I swear. Everyone that gets it, has gotten it, and the ones that don’t, aren’t going to.
Flora can keep her evil jello mold. I found something a lot nicer laying around old Strat.
I’m not naming names. I’m not even promising to be true to the gender involved. I’m not trying to start a fight. I am making an observation. Kapitch?
What happened to me this morning is that I was reading what is considered by all to be a well-informed, rounded blog specific to one specific class. I have been reading that blog for some time. But, today, for whatever reason, I while I was reading it, I realized, of a sudden, that I had no idea – none at all – if the author was actually enjoying the activities described therein, or if it was just another notch, just another boss, just another data point.
And that got me thinking.
What’s your first-best love?
Do you play the class you love the most, or do you play a class or spec that is needed, for whatever reason, more than your favorite?
If you blog about this silly game, do you blog about what you do, or what you want to do?
I’m reminded of the blogger that most influenced me at first, the guy that taught me that it was good to be enthusiastic and happy and, well, maybe even gush a little about how much fun he was happening. BRK may be gone, but he is not forgotten, and the post that most reminds me of the outright fun he brought to the game would be the time he had Hobbes tanking the adds in the Moroes encounter.
He was analytical. He was helpful. But, most of all, he was having a hella good time.
He not only helped me enjoy the game … he got me to start playing the game again. I had quit. Deleted all my toons. I was just reading because WoW was, still, interesting in some way1. But this guy’s enthusiasm and joy in what he was doing drove home an important lesson to me – It’s a game! Have some fun, FFS!
When I tanked one of the Four Horsemen in Naxx, I had that in mind. This is how we huntard, babee! Bringing you Pewpew and RAWR in one handsome package! If I had Megan’s soul2, I’d even do a song about it! Alas, the best you get from me is fish puns, and links to people with actual talent.
Contemplate, for a moment, this post’s titular question.
Frustration and sadness arise when you are kept from what you love. You may have a sense of duty, or loyalty, or something else, that drives you to do that which you do not enjoy as much. Sometimes, we all have to be “grownups” and do what needs to be done, indeed! But if you don’t recognize that which makes you tick, and embrace it, and nurture it … what kind of experience do you believe you will get from this game?
I firmly believe that if you aren’t having fun, it’s not a game. It’s a job, and probably one with no pay.
Now that this love has overcome me …
Now that this fire is burning bright …
All of these words seem just beyond my reasoning. Be still my soul …
I actually found him via wow.com, so let it never be said that they don’t have their moments. [↩]
Given the disasterous results of last year’s family gathering in Southshore, we decided to have this years’ in the safety of our own home. I’m just thankful that we got dear Fai back, even if there were a few unexpected changes.
It’s been an eventful year for us all, with a few surprises here and there, but through it all we’ve kept each other in our hearts and minds whenever possible. If you have family, remember that not everyone does – but if we’re very lucky, we’ll find one anyway. My family, as diverse as it is, is still my family, and I’m glad for every one of them.
To celebrate, we gather together and feast and enjoy each others’ company. We all decided to get gussied up for the Feast of Winter’s Veil, although Kutath lost his fancy duds when The Exodar crashed, and he hadn’t gotten around to getting replacements (and believe me, it’s not easy finding fancy duds to fit a fully grown male Draenai!). He took it in good humor, though. Well, here’s looking forward to next year’s gathering.
Here’s a little something from us to you to commemorate the occasion. Thanks for coming by, and we hope to see you again! Best wishes for the new year from Grimmtooth, Jasra, Floramel, Illume, Faiella, Slithmere, Kutath, Orlee, Amusmoses, and Yarley!
With the Name Change feature, it’s possible to lose track of people in your Friends List in-game. Who’s that “Squiggish” person, and why is he or she in my flist, anyway?
Here’s a little trick to help keep track: use the “note” feature to record the original name you friended them under. There will still be plenty of room for other stuff, as needed. It’s no guarantee you’ll remember the person, but at least you’ll have a better chance.
If you’re working on that Loremaster achievement, WoWHead has added a new wrinkle to the WoWHead Profiler that absolutely rocks – namely, you can see any quests you have yet to complete, in any zone.
However, Admiral Akbarr says it’s a trap! And it is, to an extent, because it forces you to get a WoWHead account to install and run the WoWHead client, so they get all that nommy in-game data, and that makes WoWHead even MORE accurate! The bastards!
So, you make the call. I’ve been running the client for quite some time now. It’s unobtrusive, and it’s nice to contribute to a database which I use so extensively.
Our GM spent weeks brute-forcing the achievement, and got it mere days ago. I’m staying low for a while.
I call it that since I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done again next year, assuming all goes well.
If you didn’t read about it on BBB’s Blog, today we had a joint Horde and Alliance run in support of a guildie of his in the Sidhe Devils that was diagnosed with breast cancer. Well, in support of all who have it or are at risk, really, but that guildie was the person that inspired them.
In preparation I rolled a doppelganger up on the appropriate server and proceeded to level up. I had to have me a white bear, see, so that meant I needed to be level 12 by then. And once I got there, I thought I should make level 20 for my mount, too. The latter didn’t happen. Just short of 18. Bother.
My sweetie was there, too, on her female Dwarf Hunter – isn’t that sweet? She DID manage to out-level me, and I have to tell you it’s weird being the one being offered help through tougher quests. Total role reversal from our main server.
So this is what I took into the run. Don’t laugh. Or at least be polite and avert your face while doing so.
The knickers are charming, aren’t they?
So we gather, and I see all sorts of names pop on. Hydra, Fuubaar and Fulguralis, Squidly and Miss Medicina come immediately to mind. I had a little bit of a fanboy moment. I apologize for not mentioning any that I did see, it was chaotic and so is my mind afterward.
Finally, BBBBBB called it, and we were off!
Out of the starting area, over the rise, and down into the valley we went!
And tearing through Teldrassil we go…
I wonder what they thought of us as we passed through Darnassus.
We waited on the dock for the boat to come; that’s a lot of pink shirts!
Hydra must have been running behind, as she met us on the dock in Auberdine. After a brief /cheer we were back on the road, pouring through Auberdine like a stream.
With several Sidhe Devils flanking us all the way, we streamed through Darkshore. At one point we caught up with some confused fellow that was running the Sleeper escort. I don’t think he had a problem getting that one done, nothing stood upright for ten yards each way. But it had to be unnerving.
At the double time, you can really see the difference between Auberdine and Ashenvale.
A brief rest in Astranaar (I didn’t get any good pics since everyone kinda spread out), and then off we went for The Barrens.
Remember, you have to SNEAK around the guards, no matter how many of you there are, or the number of you wearing bright pink shirts. SNEAK.
And we were OFF THE CHAIN in the Barrens!
“Everyone – VEER LEFT! DO NOT ANGER THE GUARDS!” I’m guessing there was a treaty in effect for this event, so we had to watch our P’s and Q’s.
We hooked up with our counterparts outside of The Barrens. A mighty sight it was. I looked for Jong, and didn’t see him. /me sad, since I knew he had planned to attend.
Finally, our mighty army of pink shirts was unleased, and we headed for Rachet!
As we waited on the dock, I noticed Hydra getting excited. Why? JONG! I gave the customary fanboy /cheer. Here’s a picture of us together.
Finally, the boat arrived and we piled on. This is the best shot I could get out of four, but none of them do justice to the tide of bodies. The amazing thing was – no real lag, to speak of.
Once we arrived in Booty Bay, everyone piled off to the inn. If you look closely you can see people leveling up all over the place.
At long last, we arrived at the in, ran through it, and commenced to party atop the bank while someone ground faction against Booty Bay.
This was a wonderful event and a great opportunity to rub elbows with some people I seriously admire. Just standing on the dock with Jong was pretty uber. But of course the big thing was to show in some small way a measure of support for someone going through a hard bit of life right now. I hope things turn out well for Julie, and I hope that someday we find a cure for this and other forms of cancer.
My thanks to BigBearButt and his guild the Sidhe Devils for getting this all together. It was awesome.
I was a bit surprised to the the senior staff log in tonight considering that raiding has been suspended for the week. I was quickly asked to come to the daily (HoS); I was quite happy to. Grimmy needs a new hat. So off we went.
I found that the goal was also to get a couple of achievements; we failed at the final one because we failed to understand the difference between the two kinds of slimes. But I got a few.
After that it was decided to storm Gundrak and go for more achievements. Unfortunately, we were only able to get the one.
Finally, we went for CoS. We planned a timed run, but the tank had never run it before and started the Malgannis fight instead. I franticaly changed out to the bear which got rofloneshotted.
Once everyone died, we still had time; however, our druid died on the wipe and didn’t take the rez in time to get credit for the kill or a chance to roll on the drake. She was quite cross, and actually left the group in a snit once we downed Mal. Him and Jas should get together and drink. A lot.
I didn’t get the drake, but I got credit of a sort.
I wasn’t aware of it but I had been stacking up Timear quests all along, and this put me over the top.
Overall, my DPS was around 2250. Not bad for an undergeared BM huntard.
Last night the guild did its second ever OS +1D run. That’s not what this is about. By all accounts that one was rough, though they got it together for the final attempt and pulled off a flawless execution.
Last night’s Heroic Daily was AN, which, you may recall, has been a nemesis of ours for some time. This time through, our tank tore up the landscape, nailing everything to the floor while our DPS hammered it. I’ve never seen one go more smoothly. The major difference is that Jasra wasn’t healing – and if you think that just stirred up some navel-gazing, you’re right on. I think it’s a given, now, that Jas is going to have to go in there and prove something, at least to herself.
We also did GD in a kind of revenge motif considering one of our number had had a bad night there recently. The team performed flawlessly. Our new palli tank is a real beast, it felt like we were on rails in there. So that for the bad night.
Oh, by the way – my DPS is not, currently, all that stellar. I was the token fifth body on this run. It was amazing what the GM and our top Boomkin were laying down. I would say they had at least 75% of the DPS covered on that run. I was hovering around 2K, and happy to have it. They were 3-4K each. ::boggle::
Anyhow, given the numbers I am seeing now, as well as out of sheer curiosity, I’m thinking of handing over the DPS reigns to Flora for a while after I see K’T downed with my own eyes. I don’t think I will be able to keep up with the Joneses with this spec right now, and I’m not yet ready to re- or dual- spec for Survival, though it intrigues me and gives me an excuse to have the Kitteh out. But Flora’s just bursting with potential right now, and I’m starting to get an itch to see how she performs in a real instance or raid.
“… and so she said she’d never visit the Scryer’s tier again!”
LAUGHTER ERUPTS
Eventually one orc sits up a bit in his seat. “Well, boys, ladies, if nobody else can top that, I think we have a winner. Everbody pony up and buy one for good ol’ …”
“’scuse me, sir!”
“Eh?”
“I mighta seen something, you could say, might top that, when I was standing duties in Orgrimmar.”
“Orgrimmar?!? Now yer just makin’ stuff up!”
A Blood Elf stamps the butt of his spear on the floor. “You know better than that, soldier. True stories only!”
“Well, I’ll tell you, and you can decides amongst yerselfs, okay?”
The Sarge narrows his eyes; “You better make it worth the wait, Private, or I’ma gonna send you to stand a post in Wintergrasp.”
“Yes sir, as you wish, sir.
Well, it’s like this.
I was standin’ a rotation in Org, which is fine since I get to womanize and drink a lot …”
(several in the room spontaneously cheer)
“… yeah, thanks you … when this Night Elf in cat form (not bad looking, either) comes running up the back alley.
Naturally, we gives chase, but the Corporal made me go back to my post, just in case she had friends.
I think he just wanted to have more time to beat on her with his axe –”
(more cheers)
“– yeah, I like hittin’ stuff with me axe, too — but anyway … where was I?
Oh yeah!
So I heads back to my post when I sees … well, a nekkid Dorf.”
“That’s it? We get so many naked Dwarfs in Org that they count towards the Census!”
“Aye, that we do, Sarge … but this one was ridin … a chicken.”
The room erupted into chaos. “You expect us to believe that you saw a naked Dwarf ride through Orgrimmar on a chicken?“, the Blood Elf yelled. “Sargent, I thought you trained them better!”
The Sarge glared at the hapless private; “Give me one good reason not to send you off to Northrend this very minute, private!”
“Well, I have this picture what some Goblin took for me.”
“Ugh …. ” the Sarge muttered to himself briefly. “Okay, you glubberthumpers, what are ya waitin’ on? Drinks for the private!”
COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTE: The subatomic particles (electrons, Protons, etc.) comprising your computer are exactly the same in every measurable respect as those used in the products of other computer companies, and no claim to the contrary may legitimately be expressed or implied.
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WOW Armory - Check your toons' stats as well as those of others
WOWHead - Excellent online database of items, quests, spells, etc.
Why is it, when I get what I think is a good idea, a dozen people start doing it before my plans come to fruition? I was thinking to myself how I could collect little unbloggable snippets and recommendations together for a weekend post, and suddenly I see it everywhere before my first one goes up.
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