After I decided to pick up my priest again, I've spent some time gearing her up. It was fairly easy, actually, up to a certain point. I got two ilvl 264 PVP items, bought PVE gear with emblembs and got a lot of drops from the new instances.
However, it stopped in Halls of Reflection. Let me tell you a secret of mine. I love the place! No, really. It was the only instance that gave me a consistent challenge when I was tanking.
It is quite entertaining to heal too, actually. But Blizzard really did their job here, the instance requires that all the roles perform good. A tank that can both keep aggro on all targets and survive a few seconds of no healing, a healer that can keep everyone more or less alive, and dps that can pull on average 3k dps or so. In addition, you need to prioritize the targets and preferably crowd control too. There's a reason that the instance has a gear requirement before joining in the queue...
When I dinged 80 with my priest, I could pull about 2k dps on bosses. Hyperspeed Accelerators and Berserking were a big part of that, of course. I don't remember every character, but I believe all of them broke 1.5k dps before they dinged 80, given a dps spec.
I've attempted HoR 8 times now, with numerous wipes and a lot of waiting time for people to join after other have left. Six of those times were due to bad tanks. One in particular was extremely well-geared, but spent all his time in melee with two mobs, ignoring the rest. Another just plainly refused to even try, despite being well-geared. One was very polite and skilled, but just not tough enough for the job. I don't recall the rest exactly.
But... two times I've gotten good tanks. Not just good, but great. The tanks that every healer dream of queuing up with. Controls the groups, leaves the crowd-controlled mob alone, are patient and just as an added bonus interrupts spell casts on the mobs or spell reflect them.
What happened those two times? We had to give up because of too low dps. I remember in particular a rogue that averaged 1.2k dps. Because of the low group dps, we couldn't take down one wave at the start before the next spawned. We wiped when I ran out of mana. I'm not geared to chain-cast heals through all the waves without any drinking in between. And then he had the nerve to blame me for the wipe. Yes, technically it was my mana running out. However, I have no mana trouble when running the instance as intended, even healing three waves without drinking. I let him know what I thought about it.
I also recall a hunter who could pull some 2.5k dps... not too shabby, but completely ignored all my pleas for leaving the CC'ed mob alone. "Lol, this isn't ICC," he let me know.
If I'm ever going to lead a raiding group, I'd base my invitations on how a given person handled an instance such as this. Even if you overgear it, your playstyle tells me a lot about what kind of person you are in a raid group. Of course, everyone would play nice with a raid leader watching, so I'd somehow had to do it without them knowing I was watching, like having them join me with an alt they didn't know of or something.
So... now I've given up gearing up my priest anymore. I don't see much point in wading through all those frustrations when I don't have to. It's my spare time, and I'm going to take responsibility for it by not wasting too much on it on such frustrations. Instead, I've started preparing for Cataclysm.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
The items I never sold or destroyed...
I just got my account stolen, leading to a serious amount of paranoia. It turned out it was my own fault; I had entered my username and password on a phishing site. Some of the phishing mails are good, some are insanely good. This one was pretty good.
Anyway. I just suddenly got mail that my account was suspended because of gold selling. I filled out a contact form, and after about a day, the suspension was lifted and most items was returned to me.
The downside; What a mess. Full cleaning required, please. In addition, I noticed a few items that the GM hadn't restored that I got when I asked specifically for it. I have no guarantee that there might not be other items missing as well. It just comes down to my memory, which frankly is a bit bad with 8 different characters.
The upside: I got a good opportunity to look through my items.
My priest is my oldest character. I had no less than two 16-slot bags in my bag full of technically useless stuff. Vanity items, if I can call it that. I got a chance to see through them now.
Each of them tells a tale. I did sell a lot of them during this cleanup, but there are still some that I can't destroy. I'd like to share the tale of a few of them.
One was to ally myself with any horde interested that was there. Before the fight, we agreed on who would loot the chest should we win, usually by /roll. I never fought horde in the arena, for roleplaying reasons. If some horde didn't want to join my cause, I didn't enter the arena until they had died or the chest was gone.
The other way was to go for it at 6 in the morning. Since it spawned exactly at 6, 12, 18 and 24, "all" I had to do was stand up early and get the chest if there were none other nearby.
The final way was combined with one of the other, namely the Gnomish Mind Control Cap. I did sell that one in BC, though, as it was useless then. Of course, sometimes I ended up fighting FOR the one I tried mind control (backlash), but fair enough, that was in hindsight fun as well.
My best memory was when there was a lvl 60 night elf druid who really, really wanted the chest. I stood behind a pillar and watched her kill all alliance left and right. I was only lvl 45, not a real threat to her at all. Anyway: I just leapt into the arena while she looted the chest, and used the cap. Then I looted the chest, while she (mind controlled, like a minion) attacked an alliance player who just had respawned. Naturally, I ran afterwards. Boy, was she angry at me! She chased me for a loooong time. Fortunately, she didn't have epic riding skill, and I had the carrot on a stick, so I eventually outran her.
I also got rid of the Warden Staff, my classic PVP staff, a long time ago. I caused a druid in my guild to guild quit when he discovered he had it, despite him having farmed and attempted to buy it off the auction house for a long time. I think I paid 150g on the auction house, which was a pretty big heap of gold for that time.
If any of you have any vanity item tales to tell, feel free. I'm all ears.
Anyway. I just suddenly got mail that my account was suspended because of gold selling. I filled out a contact form, and after about a day, the suspension was lifted and most items was returned to me.
The downside; What a mess. Full cleaning required, please. In addition, I noticed a few items that the GM hadn't restored that I got when I asked specifically for it. I have no guarantee that there might not be other items missing as well. It just comes down to my memory, which frankly is a bit bad with 8 different characters.
The upside: I got a good opportunity to look through my items.
My priest is my oldest character. I had no less than two 16-slot bags in my bag full of technically useless stuff. Vanity items, if I can call it that. I got a chance to see through them now.
Each of them tells a tale. I did sell a lot of them during this cleanup, but there are still some that I can't destroy. I'd like to share the tale of a few of them.
My Gnomish Battle Chicken
Its level is dependent on your engineering skill - it is for example lvl 82 at my current skill, I believe. Anyway, at somewhere around 35 I had skilled engineering all the way up to 300, despite being low level, with the help of materials from guildmates and friends. In battlegrounds, walking around with a lvl 60 battle chicken at level 35 was actually a real threat. Oh, what fun! Since it has a 20 min cooldown, I constantly switched trinkets after each one had been used.Arena Grand Master
If you don't know, it requires you to "win" the gurubashi arena chest 12 times in order to get it. And I did it long before level 60? How? Well, three ways, really.One was to ally myself with any horde interested that was there. Before the fight, we agreed on who would loot the chest should we win, usually by /roll. I never fought horde in the arena, for roleplaying reasons. If some horde didn't want to join my cause, I didn't enter the arena until they had died or the chest was gone.
The other way was to go for it at 6 in the morning. Since it spawned exactly at 6, 12, 18 and 24, "all" I had to do was stand up early and get the chest if there were none other nearby.
The final way was combined with one of the other, namely the Gnomish Mind Control Cap. I did sell that one in BC, though, as it was useless then. Of course, sometimes I ended up fighting FOR the one I tried mind control (backlash), but fair enough, that was in hindsight fun as well.
My best memory was when there was a lvl 60 night elf druid who really, really wanted the chest. I stood behind a pillar and watched her kill all alliance left and right. I was only lvl 45, not a real threat to her at all. Anyway: I just leapt into the arena while she looted the chest, and used the cap. Then I looted the chest, while she (mind controlled, like a minion) attacked an alliance player who just had respawned. Naturally, I ran afterwards. Boy, was she angry at me! She chased me for a loooong time. Fortunately, she didn't have epic riding skill, and I had the carrot on a stick, so I eventually outran her.
Imperial Red Robe
This one I bought purely for roleplaying reasons and its looks. I still think it looks neat. I paid 5 gold for it, which was a rather big fortune at that point in my career, somewhere around 30ish, long before I could actually equip it. I used about a handful of times on roleplaying occassions, and even got offered 15g for it, which I refused.Piccolo of the Flaming Fire
I never got this one in classic. I got it at the end of BC, I think, while soloing a part of Stratholme. It wasn't even intentional, I just aggroed the rare mob and had to defend myself. It's a sort of item I just can't throw away, since it's so hard to get hold of again. But would I really miss it? I doubt so.Hydrocane
I spent a few hours farming for this one. It was hard for a discipline priest at level 55ish. And in BC I didn't even have a use for it. I finally decided to sell it yesterday. I also sold Azure Silk Belt, which I had made for the purpose of swimming. I figured I can just use Levitate instead to run on the water.Speeeeed! Gimme what I neeeeed
From my WSG career: Nifty Stopwatch and Skull of Impending Doom. Who knows, these might come in handy again in Cataclysm with rated BGs? I actually got half-way through revered just by playing WSG and enjoying it. Yes, I know a lot of people are exalted, but I also know that most of them painfully grinded it. I didn't play if I didn't find it fun.Various irreplaceable quest-items
I'm considering selling Barov Peasant Caller. I don't think I'll ever use it, and it's not really great. However, it is irreplaceable. I can find a bit more reason to hang on to Moist Towelette. I used it on my shaman to get Intense Cold. They're less useful for a priest than say a shaman, though. In Cata all healers can remove magic anyway. I just can't help but some day... some day I'll find a use for it. Bah. Highly unlikely. However, also possible with rated battlegrounds.What do you mean? You SOLD it?
Those mentioned above are what I decided to keep. I sold the rest. I do actually regret not hanging on to my enchanted White Wedding Dress, the one I was "married" in. However, seeing that it wasn't soulbound, I gave it away to another troll who was marrying after me. Oh, fun roleplaying times.I also got rid of the Warden Staff, my classic PVP staff, a long time ago. I caused a druid in my guild to guild quit when he discovered he had it, despite him having farmed and attempted to buy it off the auction house for a long time. I think I paid 150g on the auction house, which was a pretty big heap of gold for that time.
If any of you have any vanity item tales to tell, feel free. I'm all ears.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Look! A diversion!
I suddenly felt the need to write something again. I guess a quick update is in order.
While on a "break" from WoW, I've been playing mainly Team Fortress 2, and Mass Effect 1 and 2. Team Fortress is fun for a while, but it never manages to keep me stuck for very long. Mass Effect was awesome. Played through the first game three times as an adept (since you need to unlock difficulties in order to beat Insanity). Played through the second game once on Hardcore, and half-way again on Insanity. First time as an adept (imported from ME1), the second time as a Vanguard. After I beat the Collossus on Tali's recruitment mission by charging right up to it and beating it in melee on insanity, I didn't find the motivation to play through the rest. Felt like I had done what I wanted with the game.
Anyway. I've been playing some WoW again recently. About three weeks ago, I created my first "real" alliance character, a gnome warlock with a mean faced called Malict (by the way, if she happens to be undressed it is because I've mailed the heirloom robe to my low-level horde mage).
My initial motivation for creating her was that I wanted to experience the retaking of Gnomeregan once it becomes available, first-hand. It has already been greatly parodied by Complex Actions, with a follow-up. I reckon level 10 or so would be enough, but while playing I found that I enjoyed it a lot and just kept leveling for a while.
It was fun and interesting playing a warlock. I've always liked dots when playing dps, and so affliction came pretty naturally for me. I also liked having a pet from my death knight, and warlock pets are even more functional than the ghoul. Since I've never had an alliance character, I could only mail heirlooms, not money. Thus, I had to earn my keep by using the auction house. It was also pretty entertaining in moderate amounts, and I only earned as much as I needed to buy glyphs, train and live "comfortably", not buy equipment.
Being only dps and not having the option to tank or heal was a different experience. Sure, I've dps'ed before, but this time I *had* to dps. I must admit, I missed the possibility to choose between the two. Or three, in the case of druids.
A downside was naturally that I didn't get to play affliction in any instance. Yes, I was specced affliction, but almost all mobs died before I'd gotten even a full corruption on them, meaning I was ruining my own dps by dotting them instead of just nuking them. Almost all trash mobs ended with me channeling Rain of Fire repeatedly.
Seeing new places (or at least, places from a different angle) was pretty interesting. All the zones seemed very ... empty, though. Not strange, I guess. I just missed any social interaction at all. And in instances, most people are pretty silent. Add to that that I had buttons to click almost all the time to keep up my dps.
I spent some levels as demonology, speccing for max survivability for PVP. However, I specced back at 30 to get Curse of Exhaustion and Siphon Life. I loved those. However, at the same time, my survivability in PVP against rogues went down by 80%.
Last night I found I wasn't very keen on leveling Malicit anymore. I was wondering if I should pick up my troll mage Rime instead, whom I've had at level 20-something since the second year of wow. Look at it this way, her name is Rime. Practically every name meaning anything at all in any vocabulary have already been taken a long time ago.
I've thought a lot about what I want to play in Cataclysm. I guess I'll write more about it later.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Liquidatin' mah resources and reading
Since I'm sort of on a break, I decided that I don't need the materials I had stocked up. During three weekends where I only posted on saturday mornings, I sold off most of it, leaving me now with somewhere between 30-40k across my characters. Handy. Not exactly Greedy Goblin-amounts, but enough to fulfill my needs for quite some time. Now my account time has run out until I decide to pay and play again.
I'm eagerly reading all blue posts and information regarding Cataclysm. I'm one step closer to finding out what I want to play in Cataclysm now. I'm just no paladin. I'm probably no priest either. So most likely it will be something like this in Cataclysm, in order of most likely at the moment.
The last alternative is ... very unlikely. But for the moment more likely than playing my paladin. I've just considered levelling one, probably a goblin, to see the new starting zone and enjoy the new levelling experience. I'll probably play the Worgen starting area too. Possibly as a hunter, never had one of those. And then I can retire after the starting area, unless I fiercely fall in love with it.
By the way, just because I'm not going to play a priest or paladin doesn't mean I won't be envying them sometimes...
I'm eagerly reading all blue posts and information regarding Cataclysm. I'm one step closer to finding out what I want to play in Cataclysm now. I'm just no paladin. I'm probably no priest either. So most likely it will be something like this in Cataclysm, in order of most likely at the moment.
Shaman as my healer in PVE/PVP, Death Knight as my tank in PVE and dps in PVP.
Druid as tank in PVE and healer in PVP.
Keep all three more or less active.
Druid as my healer in PVE/PVP, Death Knight as my tank in PVE and dps in PVP.
Shaman as my healer, Warrior (!) as my tank in PVE and dps in PVP.
The last alternative is ... very unlikely. But for the moment more likely than playing my paladin. I've just considered levelling one, probably a goblin, to see the new starting zone and enjoy the new levelling experience. I'll probably play the Worgen starting area too. Possibly as a hunter, never had one of those. And then I can retire after the starting area, unless I fiercely fall in love with it.
By the way, just because I'm not going to play a priest or paladin doesn't mean I won't be envying them sometimes...
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Status: Offline, waiting and excited
I've found that I don't have much motivation to play WoW right now. There are just no goals for me to accomplish. The only goal is to see the big, cool fights. However, to do that, I either need to join a raiding force, or I'll have to join a pug that successfully takes down the bosses. Since ICC is self-nerfing, I figure I can just wait a while and join a pug when it has become much easier.
In the end, I haven't found out which class I want to focus on for PVP either. That means I run around with a lot of moderately-equipped characters, none of them really standing a chance against a top-equipped PVPer.
Despite this, I'm not done with WoW. In fact, I'm really looking forward to Cataclysm, and reading every blue post about the design changes. So I'll be playing again then. Until then, the only stuff I do in WoW is getting my seasonal stuff done to get 310% mounts with all my characters. I've looted about 1000 eggs the last two days. I'm not a fun of RNG in achievements. One random pet in one of the eggs saved me for another 100 eggs.
In the meantime, I've tried playing a bit Team Fortress 2. While it's fun for a while, it's not a game that keeps my interest up for long. I've also borrowed Zelda: The Twilight Princess for Nintendo Wii, and Mirror's Edge for PC. Just something to play when I'm bored. It's nice playing single-player games for a change. By the way, I loved Portal. The actual portals was a nice gameplay idea, however the story was what really enthralled me. It was just pure awesome. And the song at the end? I'm still listening to it on Youtube several weeks after I played through the game. Portal 2, come to me.
I've also decided to start a D&D 4th edition campaign using Google Wave. I'm playing in two others already. That will certainly be a challenge to me. Did I mention I'm not a native english speaker?
I'm trying to keep the blog to WoW-stuff, so I don't think I will blog much about other games (applies to both computer and roleplaying games).
I've earlier tried to comment whether announced changes are "good" or "bad". In my opinion, practically every change is "good" because it is intended to improve the game. Even if class A gets nerfed and I love class A, I think it's a good thing that the balance has just been improved. I could say whether I like or dislike a change.
Today's first news, that Death Knights will be tanking only as blood, is a mixed blessing for me. I've really enjoyed tanking as Unholy and splatting corpses all over the walls. However, I can still do that by subspeccing into Unholy with my tank spec. In the end, I think I'll like the change.
I know that Blizz will improve druid tanking some. My sincere hope is that they'll improve it a lot, allowing them to actually have an interesting and challenging inherit mechanic for tanking. The rage change was a nice start.
I'm so looking forward to hearing the rest of the changes that will be announced the next tree days.
In the end, I haven't found out which class I want to focus on for PVP either. That means I run around with a lot of moderately-equipped characters, none of them really standing a chance against a top-equipped PVPer.
Despite this, I'm not done with WoW. In fact, I'm really looking forward to Cataclysm, and reading every blue post about the design changes. So I'll be playing again then. Until then, the only stuff I do in WoW is getting my seasonal stuff done to get 310% mounts with all my characters. I've looted about 1000 eggs the last two days. I'm not a fun of RNG in achievements. One random pet in one of the eggs saved me for another 100 eggs.
In the meantime, I've tried playing a bit Team Fortress 2. While it's fun for a while, it's not a game that keeps my interest up for long. I've also borrowed Zelda: The Twilight Princess for Nintendo Wii, and Mirror's Edge for PC. Just something to play when I'm bored. It's nice playing single-player games for a change. By the way, I loved Portal. The actual portals was a nice gameplay idea, however the story was what really enthralled me. It was just pure awesome. And the song at the end? I'm still listening to it on Youtube several weeks after I played through the game. Portal 2, come to me.
I've also decided to start a D&D 4th edition campaign using Google Wave. I'm playing in two others already. That will certainly be a challenge to me. Did I mention I'm not a native english speaker?
I'm trying to keep the blog to WoW-stuff, so I don't think I will blog much about other games (applies to both computer and roleplaying games).
I've earlier tried to comment whether announced changes are "good" or "bad". In my opinion, practically every change is "good" because it is intended to improve the game. Even if class A gets nerfed and I love class A, I think it's a good thing that the balance has just been improved. I could say whether I like or dislike a change.
Today's first news, that Death Knights will be tanking only as blood, is a mixed blessing for me. I've really enjoyed tanking as Unholy and splatting corpses all over the walls. However, I can still do that by subspeccing into Unholy with my tank spec. In the end, I think I'll like the change.
I know that Blizz will improve druid tanking some. My sincere hope is that they'll improve it a lot, allowing them to actually have an interesting and challenging inherit mechanic for tanking. The rage change was a nice start.
I'm so looking forward to hearing the rest of the changes that will be announced the next tree days.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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