I was tinkering with my Priest this morning and ran past SW, and saw the Pilgrims stuff all set out there (not like I didn't KNOW it was there, but you know what I mean). After picking up the quests and doing some cooking I found that the Pilgrim event is the best, cheapest, easiest and all round win way to level cooking. For mere copper you can buy the mats for the holiday food, there is a permanent fire, a trainer and unlimited mats ... and then the recipes stay orange pretty much until you can cook the next one :)
So if you have any alts on whom you may at some point wish to cook, I suggest you get into the [spirit of sharing]. Bad, bad pun. Still, get to cooking, there is no better time.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sleazy Cheap Shots, Alliance style
So you would think that an Alliance Holy Pally and a fire-breathing, destruction dealing lock like Mortigan wouldn't have much in common. We don't, but his blog is a good read anyway :). The other day, Morty was talking about cheap shots. In fact one could go as far as to wince for the poor burned smoking pile of feathers he incinerated.
So, now, to square the ledger, I present for you Sleazy Cheap Shots. MY WAY.
I was wandering around doing Pilgrims quests ... for a meta achievement that is not part of a 310% flyer. *shakes head*. Anyway, I was trying to get a seat at a table outside Undercity. Now the devs have, in their wisdom, put the tables so close you end up PVP flagged, like it or not. And you can't take a seat unless you are out of combat, which is VERY annoying. And I couldn't take a seat, so I look around for the irritating Hordie that can;t even let me get an achievement on my own. and I find behind me, the Horde equivalent of a Crag Boar.
For those who are a little slow, let me compare the two. Ulduar 10 geared (ish) Holy Pally, and some inconsequential hunter's pet, of level THIRTEEN. Like seriously, if not for the annoyance factor, I would have stood there and flat out laughed at him.
But he was keeping me in combat, and I didn't really want to hang around while he was bleating in Gen chat for Morty and all his mates to come and disassemble me to my component pixels. And yes, I fully understand the fact that Morty and I play on very different servers. But you know what I mean.
So I created a nice little smear of boar sized paste along the ground. Very, very quickly. Having by now realised that he was a *little* out of his depth, one would have expected this hunter to run squealing deeper into the maw of the yawning abyss that Horde cities are for the Ally folks, but noooooo, this little hunter wass gonna teach old Saunder a lesson. He was going to tear me a new one, right there.
I briefly considered using the fools own arrows to pin him to a wall, just to make him watch me. I settled for a holy shock to his unprotected face, sat in my chair and left.
I mean really, as a low level toon, when you are not flagged, rule number 1 ... Level 13s should not try to hit level 80s. EVER.
Serves his stupid self right, too. I wish him many happy repair bills.
So, now, to square the ledger, I present for you Sleazy Cheap Shots. MY WAY.
I was wandering around doing Pilgrims quests ... for a meta achievement that is not part of a 310% flyer. *shakes head*. Anyway, I was trying to get a seat at a table outside Undercity. Now the devs have, in their wisdom, put the tables so close you end up PVP flagged, like it or not. And you can't take a seat unless you are out of combat, which is VERY annoying. And I couldn't take a seat, so I look around for the irritating Hordie that can;t even let me get an achievement on my own. and I find behind me, the Horde equivalent of a Crag Boar.
For those who are a little slow, let me compare the two. Ulduar 10 geared (ish) Holy Pally, and some inconsequential hunter's pet, of level THIRTEEN. Like seriously, if not for the annoyance factor, I would have stood there and flat out laughed at him.
But he was keeping me in combat, and I didn't really want to hang around while he was bleating in Gen chat for Morty and all his mates to come and disassemble me to my component pixels. And yes, I fully understand the fact that Morty and I play on very different servers. But you know what I mean.
So I created a nice little smear of boar sized paste along the ground. Very, very quickly. Having by now realised that he was a *little* out of his depth, one would have expected this hunter to run squealing deeper into the maw of the yawning abyss that Horde cities are for the Ally folks, but noooooo, this little hunter wass gonna teach old Saunder a lesson. He was going to tear me a new one, right there.
I briefly considered using the fools own arrows to pin him to a wall, just to make him watch me. I settled for a holy shock to his unprotected face, sat in my chair and left.
I mean really, as a low level toon, when you are not flagged, rule number 1 ... Level 13s should not try to hit level 80s. EVER.
Serves his stupid self right, too. I wish him many happy repair bills.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
What, another 25-man PuG success?
I have been farming WG honor and marks on my hunter recently to improve his low-medium NR quest greens to something vaguely less embarrassing. I know that PVP = welfare epix, but epix is epix ... And its one of those vicious circles - PVP gear means I suck less at PVP, making it easier to get more PVP gear. This is a grind the hunter is well used to, having at one point 4 L70 PVP epix he used to get geared for BC Heroics.
After one such glorious Alliance victory (OK, on Aman'Thul, you want to win WG, don't play Horde. they win maybe 1 in 4 and most Alliance players feel royally cheated if they run an heroic and don't get their shards :) ) I saw the call go out for a 10-man VoA. They needed healers, so I offered the services of the Pally. 'Yes please' came the response. So I log over, join the group and we proceed to go and nail VoA. I didn't check the gear levels, but these people knew their stuff and the tanks were good, the Deeps went pew pew much, and the healers were fine and a good balance.
We finish, and I head back to Dal, and as I get there, I see that a different person is now standing on a virtual street corner LFM for a 25-man VoA. I figure I might as well after all if it is fail, at least it wont take too long, so I get an invite, and I see that 3-4 of the previous group are in this one too, which somewhat reduces my automatic 25-man PuG panic. The group fills, and then the whinging starts: 'Wadda you say *need achieve & gear* and have a Lock in T6????' Essentially the whingers were told to shut up, or leave, and they shut up. Mostly.
So we went in, and took apart Emalon ... and it was all pretty smooth. Then the remainder of the DPS start up, and it was quite funny. 'Hey you lot, that lock who was in T6 just out-dps'd most of you and is sitting third on recount'. The silence from the whingers was deafening, except for one nutjob who quit. So we 24-manned the rest, and it was smooth and easy and the lock got two bits of gear.
I almost can't believe it, another 25-man, total PuG, and no huge pain. *And* I top the healing meters too :D not bad for a lunch time's effort.
After one such glorious Alliance victory (OK, on Aman'Thul, you want to win WG, don't play Horde. they win maybe 1 in 4 and most Alliance players feel royally cheated if they run an heroic and don't get their shards :) ) I saw the call go out for a 10-man VoA. They needed healers, so I offered the services of the Pally. 'Yes please' came the response. So I log over, join the group and we proceed to go and nail VoA. I didn't check the gear levels, but these people knew their stuff and the tanks were good, the Deeps went pew pew much, and the healers were fine and a good balance.
We finish, and I head back to Dal, and as I get there, I see that a different person is now standing on a virtual street corner LFM for a 25-man VoA. I figure I might as well after all if it is fail, at least it wont take too long, so I get an invite, and I see that 3-4 of the previous group are in this one too, which somewhat reduces my automatic 25-man PuG panic. The group fills, and then the whinging starts: 'Wadda you say *need achieve & gear* and have a Lock in T6????' Essentially the whingers were told to shut up, or leave, and they shut up. Mostly.
So we went in, and took apart Emalon ... and it was all pretty smooth. Then the remainder of the DPS start up, and it was quite funny. 'Hey you lot, that lock who was in T6 just out-dps'd most of you and is sitting third on recount'. The silence from the whingers was deafening, except for one nutjob who quit. So we 24-manned the rest, and it was smooth and easy and the lock got two bits of gear.
I almost can't believe it, another 25-man, total PuG, and no huge pain. *And* I top the healing meters too :D not bad for a lunch time's effort.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Casual, Or ...
"If you are a casual player (hint: If you read WoW blogs, you are probably NOT a casual player)"
ROTFL. I know that the Fluid Druid meant this in the right way, but seriously, all someone who reads WoW blogs needs to be is at work, and able to surf but not play :D
ROTFL. I know that the Fluid Druid meant this in the right way, but seriously, all someone who reads WoW blogs needs to be is at work, and able to surf but not play :D
I heal, therefore I am.
I read Bell's post about being locked into healing and I must say that it struck a chord (I was going to say rang a bell, but that's way to cheesy) with me. I now have a Holy/Ret Pally, a Resto/Boom Druid, my Hunter and DK, all 80. I still have gear that I can use for the Pally's Holy set (read all of the triumph gear) and so I try to use him most. I have also had a couple of instances where I went ret/boom or on the hunter, but I failed most miserably.
Lets have a look at the various reasons for this: first, like Bell, I hate to sit in LFG waiting for Heals. Particularly when I have TWO healers. Second, I like healing, especially on the Pally. I have done lots of it, I know the fights, I have the gear so that I can be a little lazy :D, and, like Jess/Miss Medicina talks about, I am comfortable in most cases that I know where in the reflex/reactive spectrum I sit and where I need to be to do my job (and those two aren't that far apart). Third, I know the fights ... as a healer, NOT as a DPS. I will be the first to admit that I get tunnel vision and concentrate on playing 'whack-a-mole' to the green bars, often to the exclusion of the rest of the fight. Certainly I have enough trouble working out when I am standing in the green/blue/red stuff as appropriate and still healing. Let alone turn that into worrying about maximising my dps, interruping/tranquilising, or whatever else I need to do as DPS, in a fight I basically need to learn from scratch. Then, there is the fact that I don't know the rotations for the different classes/specs anywhere near as well as I should.
The gear is relatively easy to fix, - at least for the hunter and DK, who can do Argent Tourney dailies and WG until their eyes bleed and get a number of epics without setting foot into a dungeon. I know the gear has resil on it, but a 200 level PVP epic puts a NR quest green to shame with room to spare. Yet that only compounds the problem more as then it will LOOK like I should know what I am doing and therefore I should be putting out STACKS more DPS.
And I don't know what I am doing! The simple fact is that I haven't had enough practice, enough gear or done enough reading to make any of those alternative specs and classes viable to the point where I feel like I am not being carried by people who don't want to see me leave as a healer :D
Lets face it, the idea of four pathetic randoms crying in /trade for a healer gives you a certain boost to the ego to rock up on your horse and save the day. You need a healer? Of course, *I* am the guy for you! ... and they fall piteously at my feet and grovel in humble servitude and the awesomeness of their healer. (Ew, now, I'm starting to sound like ... well, you know :) ), but you get the idea. Also, running around doing my own thing only to jump into a formed group that is GTG is awesome. No downtime, simple badges.
The revamped LFD stuff in the new patch will probably help this, but also paradoxically, make it worse. It will be easier for the deeps to find a healer, but it will be much, much easier for a healer to find random instances :)
Maybe I should just accept that I have ONE primary healer, and multiple toons who can farm or solo, and dual specs is really just a way for me to be able to kill stuff in less time than it takes to write a novel. A BIG novel. I leveled as Holy, and don't get me wrong, it has given me the experience, but it takes approximately 1.2 YEARS to kill a single non-elite level 80 mob. I roll in as ret, and ch'ck ch'ck boom (sorry, I had to throw that in for the Aussies out there) :) ) they vaporise.
Maybe I should concentrate on being the very best I can. As a healer. Screw the deeps. Oh wait, most of them do a pretty good job of shooting themselves in the foot without help ... :D
Lets have a look at the various reasons for this: first, like Bell, I hate to sit in LFG waiting for Heals. Particularly when I have TWO healers. Second, I like healing, especially on the Pally. I have done lots of it, I know the fights, I have the gear so that I can be a little lazy :D, and, like Jess/Miss Medicina talks about, I am comfortable in most cases that I know where in the reflex/reactive spectrum I sit and where I need to be to do my job (and those two aren't that far apart). Third, I know the fights ... as a healer, NOT as a DPS. I will be the first to admit that I get tunnel vision and concentrate on playing 'whack-a-mole' to the green bars, often to the exclusion of the rest of the fight. Certainly I have enough trouble working out when I am standing in the green/blue/red stuff as appropriate and still healing. Let alone turn that into worrying about maximising my dps, interruping/tranquilising, or whatever else I need to do as DPS, in a fight I basically need to learn from scratch. Then, there is the fact that I don't know the rotations for the different classes/specs anywhere near as well as I should.
The gear is relatively easy to fix, - at least for the hunter and DK, who can do Argent Tourney dailies and WG until their eyes bleed and get a number of epics without setting foot into a dungeon. I know the gear has resil on it, but a 200 level PVP epic puts a NR quest green to shame with room to spare. Yet that only compounds the problem more as then it will LOOK like I should know what I am doing and therefore I should be putting out STACKS more DPS.
And I don't know what I am doing! The simple fact is that I haven't had enough practice, enough gear or done enough reading to make any of those alternative specs and classes viable to the point where I feel like I am not being carried by people who don't want to see me leave as a healer :D
Lets face it, the idea of four pathetic randoms crying in /trade for a healer gives you a certain boost to the ego to rock up on your horse and save the day. You need a healer? Of course, *I* am the guy for you! ... and they fall piteously at my feet and grovel in humble servitude and the awesomeness of their healer. (Ew, now, I'm starting to sound like ... well, you know :) ), but you get the idea. Also, running around doing my own thing only to jump into a formed group that is GTG is awesome. No downtime, simple badges.
The revamped LFD stuff in the new patch will probably help this, but also paradoxically, make it worse. It will be easier for the deeps to find a healer, but it will be much, much easier for a healer to find random instances :)
Maybe I should just accept that I have ONE primary healer, and multiple toons who can farm or solo, and dual specs is really just a way for me to be able to kill stuff in less time than it takes to write a novel. A BIG novel. I leveled as Holy, and don't get me wrong, it has given me the experience, but it takes approximately 1.2 YEARS to kill a single non-elite level 80 mob. I roll in as ret, and ch'ck ch'ck boom (sorry, I had to throw that in for the Aussies out there) :) ) they vaporise.
Maybe I should concentrate on being the very best I can. As a healer. Screw the deeps. Oh wait, most of them do a pretty good job of shooting themselves in the foot without help ... :D
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Clutch of WHAT?
I was looking up the triumph badge gear, while I may or may not have been in a work teleconference, and hence not 100% concentrating on either. ... And I was looking at the rings, and I nearly choked when I slightly misread the tanking ring. Lets just say that substituting a single 'n' for the 'tif' in the Clutch of ForTIFication leads to a rather Freudian item. Yes well. Ahem. Serves me right. /facepalm.
Monday, November 9, 2009
In the beginning was the Pally, and the Pally was broke.
So I was responding to a blog post, and realised that I wanted to offer my somewhat dubious services to Miss Medicina.
Being the paranoid IT nerd that I am, I didn’t really want to include my email address in a comment from which it could be scraped or botted. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to start a toon on Lothar and send an in-game mail to the lovely Jessabelle of the Lothar Swingers Club. (Sorry, just had to put the guild name as it cracks me up).
I created a toon for said purpose, a Human Paladin (of course), called Saunder (of course) – OK let me justify that a little. I don’t tend to place too much value in whispers from Level 1’s in Elwynn. 99% of them are gold sellers. I figured the easiest way for me to be not discounted as spam was to use a name that Jess may (or may not) recognise from the non-meme. Rather than traipse the way to the nearest mailbox in Goldshire, I cheat and added Jess as a friend. (As a side note completely unrelated to anything, don’t you love the way that social networking and online gaming sites assume that everyone who you want in a list of people you may have some tenuous connection with or may have had in the past or may have in the future is your FRIEND? Anyway). And it just so happens that she is online, and we get to talking, and I give her my email address.
Now I have two options. First, the normal, sensible option, would be to log off, mission accomplished, and delete the toon, which I don’t need, on a server which I don’t frequent and return to what I should have been doing. Never let it be said that I have even small traces of an obsessive personality … AHEM, or that I have Altoholism. *choke*. So of course, I completely ignore that option and proceed directly to the second option, which is, naturally, to pick up the starting quests and go beat up some innocent wolves for their meat … Time, as they say in novels, passes :D … I am now level eight on the latest incarnation of Saunder, and I am both loving it and hating it.
On the one hand, I know the class, I know the quests and I know what do to get the maximum benefit from everything (and I have Questhelper, of course). And life is good, and kobolds die, and wolves are turned into roadkill. But it’s HARD. This is the first toon in living memory where I haven’t had the resources to buy bags, gear, even skills whenever I want them. I did at least manage to reign in my tendencies to the point of not starting a DK to have the money to do these things. In fact, I think apart form my very very very first toon, all the others have had some sort of hand up. Free bags, cash, whatever, but the last time I set out with only the Shirt on my back and a somewhat dubious cast-off Hammer in my hands (How is this battle-worn? I have killed a total of 12 Wolves and 4 Kobolds, hardly a battle worthy of note, and it was worn before that!!!). As I was saying, the last time I started with so few resources, as toons are MEANT to start was … a loooooooooong time ago. Back when Noah was a boy in gaming terms.
So here I am, and just because I have not got an obsessive personality, I think I am going to play this toon. Because I can. To see how life was meant to be. Lol @ me.
Postscript:
After getting to about level 5, the whole lack of money was starting to really annoy me. So I mine up some copper, head off the SW, and start playing the AH. some ore and a Guild signature later, I have 10g to my name, some bags, and am feeling much more affluent and not like I am perpetually pregnant and needing to go back to an inn to empty my, er bags, every 2 minutes. :D
PPS:
Um, er, well, Level 10. BS & Mining both over 65 ... *shakes head*
Being the paranoid IT nerd that I am, I didn’t really want to include my email address in a comment from which it could be scraped or botted. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to start a toon on Lothar and send an in-game mail to the lovely Jessabelle of the Lothar Swingers Club. (Sorry, just had to put the guild name as it cracks me up).
I created a toon for said purpose, a Human Paladin (of course), called Saunder (of course) – OK let me justify that a little. I don’t tend to place too much value in whispers from Level 1’s in Elwynn. 99% of them are gold sellers. I figured the easiest way for me to be not discounted as spam was to use a name that Jess may (or may not) recognise from the non-meme. Rather than traipse the way to the nearest mailbox in Goldshire, I cheat and added Jess as a friend. (As a side note completely unrelated to anything, don’t you love the way that social networking and online gaming sites assume that everyone who you want in a list of people you may have some tenuous connection with or may have had in the past or may have in the future is your FRIEND? Anyway). And it just so happens that she is online, and we get to talking, and I give her my email address.
Now I have two options. First, the normal, sensible option, would be to log off, mission accomplished, and delete the toon, which I don’t need, on a server which I don’t frequent and return to what I should have been doing. Never let it be said that I have even small traces of an obsessive personality … AHEM, or that I have Altoholism. *choke*. So of course, I completely ignore that option and proceed directly to the second option, which is, naturally, to pick up the starting quests and go beat up some innocent wolves for their meat … Time, as they say in novels, passes :D … I am now level eight on the latest incarnation of Saunder, and I am both loving it and hating it.
On the one hand, I know the class, I know the quests and I know what do to get the maximum benefit from everything (and I have Questhelper, of course). And life is good, and kobolds die, and wolves are turned into roadkill. But it’s HARD. This is the first toon in living memory where I haven’t had the resources to buy bags, gear, even skills whenever I want them. I did at least manage to reign in my tendencies to the point of not starting a DK to have the money to do these things. In fact, I think apart form my very very very first toon, all the others have had some sort of hand up. Free bags, cash, whatever, but the last time I set out with only the Shirt on my back and a somewhat dubious cast-off Hammer in my hands (How is this battle-worn? I have killed a total of 12 Wolves and 4 Kobolds, hardly a battle worthy of note, and it was worn before that!!!). As I was saying, the last time I started with so few resources, as toons are MEANT to start was … a loooooooooong time ago. Back when Noah was a boy in gaming terms.
So here I am, and just because I have not got an obsessive personality, I think I am going to play this toon. Because I can. To see how life was meant to be. Lol @ me.
Postscript:
After getting to about level 5, the whole lack of money was starting to really annoy me. So I mine up some copper, head off the SW, and start playing the AH. some ore and a Guild signature later, I have 10g to my name, some bags, and am feeling much more affluent and not like I am perpetually pregnant and needing to go back to an inn to empty my, er bags, every 2 minutes. :D
PPS:
Um, er, well, Level 10. BS & Mining both over 65 ... *shakes head*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
