I've come a long way since I was afraid of dungeons in WoW. Admittedly I haven't come far enough that the concept of going into a dungeon that I've never been in before alone isn't something that scares me, but I've still come a long way.
With the recent WoW patch, the "Endgame" portion of Cataclysm was introduced. The last three major dungeons that set up the final raid in which Deathwing meets his end and the threat he presents to Azeroth is averted. This patch also added something completely new to the game - the Looking For Raid feature. It works much like the random dungeon finder, but on a larger scale, building a group of two tanks, five healers, and seventeen DPS to create a 25 man Raid Group, and then you go through a simplifed version of the Dragon Soul raid - the Deathwing fight.
Since it came out, my brother's been running it on his awesome Mage, Skyfox. He knew the fights, knew what we needed to do - it was just a matter of the other three of us getting proper gear from the new Heroic dungeons so we would have access.
Within the last week, Nyx, Lona, and I have all gotten enough Heroic gear that the Raid Finder would let us in. And so began my first raid.
The Dragon Soul raid is broken up into two seperate pieces - the seige of Wyrmrest Temple, and then the Fall of Deathwing. We did them in order, doing Wyrmrest first, taking down a bunch of mini-bosses, flying on drake-back between them. It was quite epic, and within the first few moments I realized I needed to down-grade my graphics settings. Everything was freezing and the lag was throwing my timing off. My computer was built to handle normal WoW at Ultra settings, but put in the high-particle density situation of a 25 man raid, the computer said "no". I put the settings down to their lowest level, and then everything was fine. In the first half of the Raid, I didn't even die.
In the second half, thanks to a miscommunication from a Raid Leader ("Hunters - taunt the drakes down!" ...but...we don't have a taunt... He was talking about using Distracting Shot to pull the flying drakes down to the tanks. But he wasn't clear, and Kata hadn't even experienced that before. The raid wiped, and people were angry - annoying because Nyx and I were two of the four hunters people were yelling at. But obviously none of us had known what to do, so we didn't feel SO stupid), we had some issues at the beginning. But after that? It was beautiful.
We parachuted onto Deathwing's back, working tirelessly to remove some of his Elementium and Titanium armor so that Thrall could take aim with the Dragon Soul and take him down. Deathwing fell into the Malestrom. Just when we thought he was defeated, he reared up - even falling apart, dying, he was still trying to destroy the world. The final phase of the raid involved forcing him to unhook from the rocks around the Maelstrom so that he could be destroyed for good. The only bit of him that made it through was a hunk of his jaw.
Now, I have a special relationship with Deathwing, of sorts. And even as we entered the raid, I made sure to pay him as much respect as possible. I /bow-ed to him, and /saluted him a few times through the course of the fight. My respect seems to have paid off, as I won the roll on my Best-In-Slot weapon that dropped from him after the fight. It made me very happy, and really the raid wasn't very much worse than a dungeon - not even a heroic. Though I admit I'm not finding Heroics nearly as frightening as I used to. Now they're a way to gain valor and level the Guild.
The awesomeness continued however, as the next day the five of us (Kata, Nyx, Lona, me, and our friend Colten) decided to see if we could 5-man Obsidian Sanctum to get the black drake mount to drop. Turns out we not only could do it, but we did it incredibly easily - we had that dragon down before his first lava wave came all the way up. We took him out in about 20 seconds, which has me wondering if we can pull off the version that's designed for 25 man, since all that's different is that his health is higher - two and a half times higher, which means we can probably take him out in about a minute. I say we try it. :P
Last weekend (so much gaming news to catch up on!) I leveled my Druid the last five levels to hit 80 and enter Cataclysm content. I prioratized her over my DK only because I've leveled her from level 1, and it seemed cheating to have my 2nd 85 be a class that starts at L55. Today (my birthday) I get to game during the day, and I plan on working her up higher - maybe even hitting 85 today. Or at least in the next couple of weeks.
Simultaniously I finished the next-to-last World Holiday that I needed for the Long Strange Trip meta achievement, and my purple proto-drake. Love Is In The Air started, and I only had six more achievements to complete in order to get my drake. As of today, that's down to 1. And I have everything I need for it. It's just a matter of actually DOING it, which I'm going to do when everyone is available to come with me (so they won't have to worry about doing this on their own when they decide to go for the holiday achievements, and so they'll be with me when my two years of work comes down), which will probably be tomorrow evening. In the mean time, I have plenty of other things to work on in-game. I'm actively "Tol-ling the Barad," as my brother says, once again working toward the two mounts that I can get that way. I'm also finally working with the Oracles in Sholazar Basin to get the Green Proto Drake (unless I get lucky with my first few Bear Tank Call To Arms rewards, that is), and spending a bit of each day farming Lovely Charms so I can do the Love Is In The Air dailies and save up to buy the Love Bird mount...AND at the SAME TIME, I'm gathering Darkmoon Faire tickets to save up for those mounts and pets.
So yeah, gaming gives me lots to do. :P And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I do for FUN. :P You can only imagine what my work is like.
So, happy birthday to me today. I'm 29 years old. One year to 30. :D I'm excited, and I'm sure interesting things will happen over the course of the next couple of days. :D
I already got a wonderful birthday present from my mom and dad - they got me a new bike with all the accessories! Now I can exercise in a way that won't hurt me, even when I'm not at school. :D It's wonderful and I love it. Thanks mom and dad!
There'll probably be another birthday summary post at the end of the week, but considering that I started writing this blog last Friday, I think I've stalled enough. In other blog news, still working on the new series in my spare time, and I hope to post it this summer. :)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Dungeoning In Your Sleep
I’ve heard many WoW gamers say things along the lines of, “That dungeon? I could run that in my sleep.” But, while I’ve dozed off many times while playing WoW (the problem with it being the end of my day thing to do – I doze while mining in Uldum quite a lot), I’ve never actually PLAYED the game in my sleep. Continuing to fly in a straight line and ending up in Tanaris when I was trying to mine the Uldum border is a completely different thing than actively playing the game while I sleep.
I’d also like to point out that I do not play any healers – I tank (Death Knight, Bear, Warrior, and Pally), and I DPS (Hunter, Cat, Rogue, ect.), but while I’ve played classes that can heal (Pally and druid, respectfully), I’ve never been interested in actually taking on the role myself. It’s a little too much responsibility for a game I play to relax. However, my brain seems to have other ideas because this morning I healed through Deadmines on a druid healer that doesn’t exist. How is this possible? Well, we go back to my original issue – I was playing the game in my sleep. That is – I dreamed the whole thing.
I apparently know the regular Deadmines instance well enough to run it in a dream, and I know the healing spells a druid gets well enough to cast them and even have one of my gaming epiphanies while doing so. In the dream, Kata was tanking on a Worgen Warrior that looked like a combination of my warrior, Betamus, and my rogue, Jerichò. Nyx and Lona were with us, as a DPS Mage and Warlock, respectively. Looking back on the dream I realize that I don’t know which was which – both were Human and had similar builds and looks to the characters, but in the dream I knew that one was Nyx and one was Lona. There wasn’t a fifth party member with us. I don’t remember now if we’d had a random 3rd DPS and decided to dump them at some point during the instance, or if we’d come in with the intent to 4-man the dungeon. Either way, it was just the four of us, and I was healing.
Somewhere along the dungeon I had the epiphany that I needed to “heal proactively” to use what I said to them over our headsets (we were using a Google Hangout as we do when we dungeon together sometimes so even those of us in the same room have no problem hearing each other). At the start of the instance, I’d only been casting a heal after seeing the tank take damage, and casting a Heal Over Time (HoT) on him before he ran in to pull. I’d been healing reactively, for the most part. As we reached the next to last boss, I suddenly realized that I needed to be proactive. I know the boss. I know the fights. I can anticipate when the tank is going to take a lot of damage and start casting the heal before he actually takes it. The result was that Kata spent much less of that fight close to dying than he had any of the previous fights. And when it was over and we’d also taken down the last boss, he said to me, “I’m not sure what you changed in those last two fights, but keep doing that. I barely had to Victory Rush at all.”
I was happy, as I always am when Kata gives me a compliment on my gaming, and decided that the epiphany was worth the annoyance it’d taken me to get there. I thanked him, then as I was moving to drop party and log out of the call, I woke up.
I’ve had dreams like this before, but usually I’m at least playing a character or class spec that I’m familiar with. This is the first time I’ve ever dreamed a healer, and it made me wonder if perhaps my subconscious is hinting that the next character I make should be a healer. Perhaps it’s time to try out that role. Though, before I even think of that, I want to get the rest of my characters to L85. Seeing the L72 and L73 sitting there beneath my L85 Hunter is becoming annoying.
The next time I’m dozing while gaming, however, I’ll look back on this and remember a time when I not only played in my sleep, I played WELL.
I’d also like to point out that I do not play any healers – I tank (Death Knight, Bear, Warrior, and Pally), and I DPS (Hunter, Cat, Rogue, ect.), but while I’ve played classes that can heal (Pally and druid, respectfully), I’ve never been interested in actually taking on the role myself. It’s a little too much responsibility for a game I play to relax. However, my brain seems to have other ideas because this morning I healed through Deadmines on a druid healer that doesn’t exist. How is this possible? Well, we go back to my original issue – I was playing the game in my sleep. That is – I dreamed the whole thing.
I apparently know the regular Deadmines instance well enough to run it in a dream, and I know the healing spells a druid gets well enough to cast them and even have one of my gaming epiphanies while doing so. In the dream, Kata was tanking on a Worgen Warrior that looked like a combination of my warrior, Betamus, and my rogue, Jerichò. Nyx and Lona were with us, as a DPS Mage and Warlock, respectively. Looking back on the dream I realize that I don’t know which was which – both were Human and had similar builds and looks to the characters, but in the dream I knew that one was Nyx and one was Lona. There wasn’t a fifth party member with us. I don’t remember now if we’d had a random 3rd DPS and decided to dump them at some point during the instance, or if we’d come in with the intent to 4-man the dungeon. Either way, it was just the four of us, and I was healing.
Somewhere along the dungeon I had the epiphany that I needed to “heal proactively” to use what I said to them over our headsets (we were using a Google Hangout as we do when we dungeon together sometimes so even those of us in the same room have no problem hearing each other). At the start of the instance, I’d only been casting a heal after seeing the tank take damage, and casting a Heal Over Time (HoT) on him before he ran in to pull. I’d been healing reactively, for the most part. As we reached the next to last boss, I suddenly realized that I needed to be proactive. I know the boss. I know the fights. I can anticipate when the tank is going to take a lot of damage and start casting the heal before he actually takes it. The result was that Kata spent much less of that fight close to dying than he had any of the previous fights. And when it was over and we’d also taken down the last boss, he said to me, “I’m not sure what you changed in those last two fights, but keep doing that. I barely had to Victory Rush at all.”
I was happy, as I always am when Kata gives me a compliment on my gaming, and decided that the epiphany was worth the annoyance it’d taken me to get there. I thanked him, then as I was moving to drop party and log out of the call, I woke up.
I’ve had dreams like this before, but usually I’m at least playing a character or class spec that I’m familiar with. This is the first time I’ve ever dreamed a healer, and it made me wonder if perhaps my subconscious is hinting that the next character I make should be a healer. Perhaps it’s time to try out that role. Though, before I even think of that, I want to get the rest of my characters to L85. Seeing the L72 and L73 sitting there beneath my L85 Hunter is becoming annoying.
The next time I’m dozing while gaming, however, I’ll look back on this and remember a time when I not only played in my sleep, I played WELL.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving! Virtual Venison For All!
I haven't had time to get together my thoughts and get them down on paper regarding the next 3rd of my two week roadtrip, but as today is Thanksgiving, I thought I'd just do a silly little gamer post about something I'm thankful for.
I'd been having trouble, when playing The Hunter, of only finding does. Now does are nice, and my tracking and shooting has been skilling up quite well. But... well, does aren't trophies. Not really. So I made a post on the Hunter forums asking where the heck all the bucks were. Thanks to some advice from the forum people, I finally have begun taking actual awesome trophies. Allow me to share them with you now, and be thankful for all the (virtual) venison, elk, bear, and pheasant with me!
(Can't link pictures from my site's flash gallery here, so check out the original post to see all the pretty food- ah, I mean, animals. :P )
I'd been having trouble, when playing The Hunter, of only finding does. Now does are nice, and my tracking and shooting has been skilling up quite well. But... well, does aren't trophies. Not really. So I made a post on the Hunter forums asking where the heck all the bucks were. Thanks to some advice from the forum people, I finally have begun taking actual awesome trophies. Allow me to share them with you now, and be thankful for all the (virtual) venison, elk, bear, and pheasant with me!
(Can't link pictures from my site's flash gallery here, so check out the original post to see all the pretty food- ah, I mean, animals. :P )
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A Bit Of (Irrational) Guilt
Might take a break from playing The Hunter again after today. However, first I have to share with all of you the beautiful pictures and live shots I took today. (Yes, even live deer! Mostly... That's where the guilt comes in. I'll explain in a bit.)
I was taking some basic shots. Something about this stump really made me happy, so I decided to take a nice shot of it and practice my Rule Of Thirds (leftover from Photography class). I like how it came out. While I was framing this picture, however, I heard several mule deer call. I responded with my imitation call, and headed toward the sound.
For the last couple of days, I've been following this herd off and on. Always too far away to see them, and by the time one comes into view, it's isolated and I usually try to take it as a trophy. Today, I managed to catch a distant picture of the herd. Two deer can be easily seen, and there were four others, however they're mostly behind trees.
Later on, again following calls rather than tracks, this lovely girl and I came face to face as she climbed over a pile of logs. She froze, I froze. I had two choices - gun, or camera. I chose camera. Right after I snapped this picture, she turned and bolted over the logs... and here came the moment of guilt.
The Hunter is an incredibly realistic hunting game - down to the fact that panicked deer can injure themselves. After this beautiful girl bolted, I went around the logs to challenge myself and pick up her trail. I wanted to see if I could track her down a second time, knowing the general direction she'd run.
On the other side of the logs, I found a trail - but not the one I'd expected. I found blood.
I hadn't fired a shot, except for the camera, but the flash had scared her. In going over the logs, she hurt herself. I started following the trail of blood spatters and hoofprints, until I found her less than half a mile from the pile of logs.
She was laying in a pool of blood that you can kind of see in this picture. I walked around and her head followed me as I walked, watching me. She was breathing in quick, shallow pants, but her eyes were bright. In my moving around her, I saw what was wrong - the hip she's laying on is a bit mangled - it isn't surprising she didn't get too far.
Like a horse, when a deer breaks a leg, there's really nothing to be done. And that I was in a hunting game and couldn't exactly call wildlife services or anything, I only had one choice.
I pulled out my rifle, whispered an apology, aimed carefully, and shot her in the head. I put her out of her misery. But the way she was staring at me... I've never had a game feel so real that I felt shaken up afterwards. I feel that way right now. I wandered for nearly half an hour after "bagging" her. I ignored tracks, I ignored calls. I spotted a Feral Hog through my binoculars, and spooked a couple of pheasants into flight.
Through my wandering, though, I found something lovely, and it's the last thing I did before logging off of the game.
This is probably modeled after a real place, but it's beauty took my breath away. I released my guilt over the doe and let it float away on the wind as I took several photos of this beautiful vista. Then I closed the game and logged out of The Hunter.
It got a touch too real today, and I'm still shaken up. My guilt is COMPLETELY unfounded - the doe was nothing but a mass of pixels with a wonderfully designed AI that mimics the behavior of a deer. I can't turn the flash off on my in-game camera, so my only other choice would've been to shoot her anyway. Either way, it turned out the same, and I got the trophy. It's only a game.
So why do I still feel just a bit sad?
I was taking some basic shots. Something about this stump really made me happy, so I decided to take a nice shot of it and practice my Rule Of Thirds (leftover from Photography class). I like how it came out. While I was framing this picture, however, I heard several mule deer call. I responded with my imitation call, and headed toward the sound.
For the last couple of days, I've been following this herd off and on. Always too far away to see them, and by the time one comes into view, it's isolated and I usually try to take it as a trophy. Today, I managed to catch a distant picture of the herd. Two deer can be easily seen, and there were four others, however they're mostly behind trees.
Later on, again following calls rather than tracks, this lovely girl and I came face to face as she climbed over a pile of logs. She froze, I froze. I had two choices - gun, or camera. I chose camera. Right after I snapped this picture, she turned and bolted over the logs... and here came the moment of guilt.
The Hunter is an incredibly realistic hunting game - down to the fact that panicked deer can injure themselves. After this beautiful girl bolted, I went around the logs to challenge myself and pick up her trail. I wanted to see if I could track her down a second time, knowing the general direction she'd run.
On the other side of the logs, I found a trail - but not the one I'd expected. I found blood.
I hadn't fired a shot, except for the camera, but the flash had scared her. In going over the logs, she hurt herself. I started following the trail of blood spatters and hoofprints, until I found her less than half a mile from the pile of logs.
She was laying in a pool of blood that you can kind of see in this picture. I walked around and her head followed me as I walked, watching me. She was breathing in quick, shallow pants, but her eyes were bright. In my moving around her, I saw what was wrong - the hip she's laying on is a bit mangled - it isn't surprising she didn't get too far.
Like a horse, when a deer breaks a leg, there's really nothing to be done. And that I was in a hunting game and couldn't exactly call wildlife services or anything, I only had one choice.
I pulled out my rifle, whispered an apology, aimed carefully, and shot her in the head. I put her out of her misery. But the way she was staring at me... I've never had a game feel so real that I felt shaken up afterwards. I feel that way right now. I wandered for nearly half an hour after "bagging" her. I ignored tracks, I ignored calls. I spotted a Feral Hog through my binoculars, and spooked a couple of pheasants into flight.
Through my wandering, though, I found something lovely, and it's the last thing I did before logging off of the game.
This is probably modeled after a real place, but it's beauty took my breath away. I released my guilt over the doe and let it float away on the wind as I took several photos of this beautiful vista. Then I closed the game and logged out of The Hunter.
It got a touch too real today, and I'm still shaken up. My guilt is COMPLETELY unfounded - the doe was nothing but a mass of pixels with a wonderfully designed AI that mimics the behavior of a deer. I can't turn the flash off on my in-game camera, so my only other choice would've been to shoot her anyway. Either way, it turned out the same, and I got the trophy. It's only a game.
So why do I still feel just a bit sad?
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Morning Stroll
I recently reread the book Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote, one of my favorite books of all time. As usual, it awakened in me a need to get out into the wild and hunt. However, despite what my taxidermic collection might say, I am not a hunter in real life. I satisfy this craving through video games for right now.
If I'm in the mood for a quick run, I play Hunting Unlimited 2009, or Deer Hunter 2005. Sometimes I'll play Carnivores or another more fanciful hunting game. But this book awakened a need for something realistic, so I went for the most realistic hunting game I know of: The Hunter.
Now, I have a free account, so all I can hunt are Mule Deer, but that's fine. It's the area and he feeling I love so much. I hunted for over an hour today, and while I spotted a doe, I was so shocked to see her that I couldn't get a shot off in time. Instead, I spent time tracking a couple of deer, and enjoyed the lovely views.
I started the hunt at six am, game time, and enjoyed the sight of the beautiful pink sunrise that greeted me.
Within an hour, I was caught in a sudden downpour that made tracking difficult. I lost the deer I'd been tracking in the resulting mud, but I was left with a gorgeous image as I looked to the sky.
I loved this image so much, it didn't matter to me that I didn't get a deer. I saw a pheasant and tried to get some pictures of it, but I couldn't get close enough for it to be defined on the camera, so I won't share those photos of fail with you. However, I feel refreshed and calm, as if I really did just go on a nature walk. I'm going back into the game now, and perhaps this time I will bag a deer. More photos to follow - I will probably edit this entry. :)
EDITING!
Went hunting again and finally got the hang of tracking. I still have yet to even see a buck, but I bagged 4 mule deer does, and managed to get a couple of good pictures of a live pheasant. :D
This was the first deer I took down. I didn't think I'd hit her at first (I forgot to hold down space when firing, which causes your character to hold their breath and therefore steady your aim), but then I found blood on the ground and tracked her a few hundred yards to where she fell. :D
The second deer I managed to hit was a stomach shot, and had it been real I would've seriously apologized to it for that. It walked a very long way, almost a mile, before it laid down and died. It took me nearly 20 minutes to find it. It looked so peaceful laying there that I aimed my camera carefully to get the best shot.
This was the only deer I hit that fell where it stood. Inspection showed I'd taken out one of it's neck vertebrae, and death was instant. I angled the shot so the entry wound could be seen.
This deer didn't walk nearly as far as the second one before it fell, but it did walk far enough that it laid down and died. Again, I angled the picture carefully so it looked to be resting.
And now for the live shots!
I'd been tracking the 4th deer in the above set, after having shot it, when something moved in my peripheral vision. "No way," I thought. "I hit that in the lung... it couldn't still be walking around." I brought up my binoculars and looked. I was shocked to see a pheasant, walking calmly in low grass. I crouched and moved closer, expecting it to flush at any moment and fly away. But it stayed, and I kept getting closer. Eventually I dropped all the way and belly crawled toward it. The following shots are what I got before it finally noticed me and flew away.
A very pretty bird and I was very happy to have seen it. I don't have a license for pheasant or it would've been a trophy for sure, as close as I got to it. However, I loved seeing it walk around. So far I haven't been able to get any photos of live deer - they're always too far away and spook before I get close enough for a good shot. But some day, I will just lay in wait and get a nice picture.
Not of the first buck I see, though. He's going in my trophy collection for sure. :P
If I'm in the mood for a quick run, I play Hunting Unlimited 2009, or Deer Hunter 2005. Sometimes I'll play Carnivores or another more fanciful hunting game. But this book awakened a need for something realistic, so I went for the most realistic hunting game I know of: The Hunter.
Now, I have a free account, so all I can hunt are Mule Deer, but that's fine. It's the area and he feeling I love so much. I hunted for over an hour today, and while I spotted a doe, I was so shocked to see her that I couldn't get a shot off in time. Instead, I spent time tracking a couple of deer, and enjoyed the lovely views.
I started the hunt at six am, game time, and enjoyed the sight of the beautiful pink sunrise that greeted me.
Within an hour, I was caught in a sudden downpour that made tracking difficult. I lost the deer I'd been tracking in the resulting mud, but I was left with a gorgeous image as I looked to the sky.
I loved this image so much, it didn't matter to me that I didn't get a deer. I saw a pheasant and tried to get some pictures of it, but I couldn't get close enough for it to be defined on the camera, so I won't share those photos of fail with you. However, I feel refreshed and calm, as if I really did just go on a nature walk. I'm going back into the game now, and perhaps this time I will bag a deer. More photos to follow - I will probably edit this entry. :)
EDITING!
Went hunting again and finally got the hang of tracking. I still have yet to even see a buck, but I bagged 4 mule deer does, and managed to get a couple of good pictures of a live pheasant. :D
This was the first deer I took down. I didn't think I'd hit her at first (I forgot to hold down space when firing, which causes your character to hold their breath and therefore steady your aim), but then I found blood on the ground and tracked her a few hundred yards to where she fell. :D
The second deer I managed to hit was a stomach shot, and had it been real I would've seriously apologized to it for that. It walked a very long way, almost a mile, before it laid down and died. It took me nearly 20 minutes to find it. It looked so peaceful laying there that I aimed my camera carefully to get the best shot.
This was the only deer I hit that fell where it stood. Inspection showed I'd taken out one of it's neck vertebrae, and death was instant. I angled the shot so the entry wound could be seen.
This deer didn't walk nearly as far as the second one before it fell, but it did walk far enough that it laid down and died. Again, I angled the picture carefully so it looked to be resting.
And now for the live shots!
I'd been tracking the 4th deer in the above set, after having shot it, when something moved in my peripheral vision. "No way," I thought. "I hit that in the lung... it couldn't still be walking around." I brought up my binoculars and looked. I was shocked to see a pheasant, walking calmly in low grass. I crouched and moved closer, expecting it to flush at any moment and fly away. But it stayed, and I kept getting closer. Eventually I dropped all the way and belly crawled toward it. The following shots are what I got before it finally noticed me and flew away.
A very pretty bird and I was very happy to have seen it. I don't have a license for pheasant or it would've been a trophy for sure, as close as I got to it. However, I loved seeing it walk around. So far I haven't been able to get any photos of live deer - they're always too far away and spook before I get close enough for a good shot. But some day, I will just lay in wait and get a nice picture.
Not of the first buck I see, though. He's going in my trophy collection for sure. :P
Friday, October 7, 2011
Brewmaster of Disappointment
Wow's Ocktoberfest-alike, Brewfest, ended this past Wednesday. One of the mechanics of the holiday is that there is a "holiday boss" accessable through the Dungeon Finder. On your first kill each day of the holiday, you receive an extra "treasure" contained in a "keg-shaped treasure chest." In this chest, you can find one of five things - a dagger, a mace, two unique mounts (Brewfest Kodo and Brewfest Ram), or.... nothing. Or, rather, not nothing. But a few Brewfest tokens, the holiday currency, and around 25 Justice Points - average for killing a boss.
Being the mount-aholic I am, I dutifully went every single day of the holiday, killed the boss, collected my reward, and opened it. All but 1 day (on which I received the dagger - ironically the day after I'd gotten something better than it and so couldn't use it anymore), I received the latter prize - that is, tokens and JP.
Now, this could just be luck-of-the-draw - and in all honesty, it is. However, I'm a BIT steamed. See.... Everyone else I know got a mount once during the holiday. There were people in chat complaining of having gotten the same mount 3 days in a ROW. Lona got the Ram, Nyx got the Kodo, Kata got a Ram, my friend Enya got a Ram.. But no mount for me. Now I'm happy for Lona, who I know is working toward the 100 Mounts achievement (more feverishly than I am, honestly, as she has the Nether Rays, which I don't yet, and she will have the Tol Barad drake in another day or so)... But it just felt unfair that I didn't get a mount.
Yes, I am complaining about a random number generator that refused to generate a number in my favor. :P NO, I'm not actually angry, and I know there's always next year.
In the mean time, I look forward to this month's holiday, Hallows End, and I hope to lay my hands on the Headless Horseman's mount which will drop from HIS treasure chest (I predict "pumpkin shaped". :P). Every mount I get is one step closer to the Blue Dragonhawk that is my eventual goal. I know I'll get there eventually. But the way I'm going, Lona will be tooling around on hers months before I get there.
Then again, I only have 4 steps left on "What A Long Strange Trip...", which will reward me with something I've long sought after: a proto-drake. And I'll eventually work up the patience to camp the Time-Lost Proto-Drake for days and days until it decides to show itself to me. And I'll keep leveling Archaeology in the hopes of obtaining the fossil raptor mount (seeing Lona with hers makes me jealous - I'M the paleontologist, dangit! :P ) And I'll eventually grind up the patience to finish the dang Sha'tari Skyguard grind for the Nether Rays (at which point, I swear, I am NEVER going into Outland again if I can help it... not unless they do something to streamline it or whatever... as it is, it's my least favorite area and makes the slog from L60 to L70 absolutely intolerable for me - which is why my characters seem to get stuck there since I don't like dungeoning, and if I want to get through that 10 levels without questing, that's kind of how I have to do it).
All things said and done, I'm still making progress on that achievement... and there may be an Ancient Eyes post later this weekend, because a LOT of stuff has happened since my last post and I feel the need to catch up. But right now, I'm going to go back to my homework. Blogging was a nice break, but right now Stats has my attention and priority.
And that, at least, is a certain probability. ;)
Being the mount-aholic I am, I dutifully went every single day of the holiday, killed the boss, collected my reward, and opened it. All but 1 day (on which I received the dagger - ironically the day after I'd gotten something better than it and so couldn't use it anymore), I received the latter prize - that is, tokens and JP.
Now, this could just be luck-of-the-draw - and in all honesty, it is. However, I'm a BIT steamed. See.... Everyone else I know got a mount once during the holiday. There were people in chat complaining of having gotten the same mount 3 days in a ROW. Lona got the Ram, Nyx got the Kodo, Kata got a Ram, my friend Enya got a Ram.. But no mount for me. Now I'm happy for Lona, who I know is working toward the 100 Mounts achievement (more feverishly than I am, honestly, as she has the Nether Rays, which I don't yet, and she will have the Tol Barad drake in another day or so)... But it just felt unfair that I didn't get a mount.
Yes, I am complaining about a random number generator that refused to generate a number in my favor. :P NO, I'm not actually angry, and I know there's always next year.
In the mean time, I look forward to this month's holiday, Hallows End, and I hope to lay my hands on the Headless Horseman's mount which will drop from HIS treasure chest (I predict "pumpkin shaped". :P). Every mount I get is one step closer to the Blue Dragonhawk that is my eventual goal. I know I'll get there eventually. But the way I'm going, Lona will be tooling around on hers months before I get there.
Then again, I only have 4 steps left on "What A Long Strange Trip...", which will reward me with something I've long sought after: a proto-drake. And I'll eventually work up the patience to camp the Time-Lost Proto-Drake for days and days until it decides to show itself to me. And I'll keep leveling Archaeology in the hopes of obtaining the fossil raptor mount (seeing Lona with hers makes me jealous - I'M the paleontologist, dangit! :P ) And I'll eventually grind up the patience to finish the dang Sha'tari Skyguard grind for the Nether Rays (at which point, I swear, I am NEVER going into Outland again if I can help it... not unless they do something to streamline it or whatever... as it is, it's my least favorite area and makes the slog from L60 to L70 absolutely intolerable for me - which is why my characters seem to get stuck there since I don't like dungeoning, and if I want to get through that 10 levels without questing, that's kind of how I have to do it).
All things said and done, I'm still making progress on that achievement... and there may be an Ancient Eyes post later this weekend, because a LOT of stuff has happened since my last post and I feel the need to catch up. But right now, I'm going to go back to my homework. Blogging was a nice break, but right now Stats has my attention and priority.
And that, at least, is a certain probability. ;)
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Druidic Versatility and Heroic Confidence
OK, right now, it is SO official. I am changing my weekly posting day from Monday to Friday. So look! Now this post is early instead of late. :)
That being said, the events described in this blog happened earlier in the week. I apologize for any inaccuracies if anyone involved happens to read this. :P Also, I'm doing some further organization on this blog - new subcategories have been added under Tooth & Arrows, so that people who only wish to read my WoW blogs can do so, and people who are interested in the other types of games this blog is about can just look at THOSE if they wish! (This doesn't effect you if you're reading this on Blogger or LJ. Blogger already keeps the sub-blogs separate and LJ... well, I THINK I've done a good job tagging all entries!) It'll be a couple of days while I go back into the archives and properly sort all the T&A blogs into their respective new categories, though. Please pardon the dust while I remodel.
That being said, on to the meat of this blog!
I've recently started playing Kalitri, my previously mentioned Worgen Druid, on WoW again. Perhaps it was this month's holiday, Brewfest, (Des has another title now!) and the chance to get a couple of rare mounts and pets that has spurred me on, but for whatever reason, she's gone from L61 to nearly L65 in the last two days, and I only stopped playing her because I ran out of "rested." I'm going to be playing Reyune (my DK) while she has a chance to build up her rested status again. I want her and Rey both to be 85 as soon as possible. And fast leveling means one thing - dungeoning. Both characters are tanks, so this should be easy, except that I still have my aversion/fear of tanking to a point.
That makes this kind of difficult.
However, something happened two nights ago that has given me a huge confidence boost in my tanking ability. I was queuing as DPS so I could do other things around waiting to dungeon, and I had the time to do so. I got into The Underbog for Kalitri's first time after less than half an hour wait (nice, for DPS), and was looking forward to trying out my new "assist the tank" macro. I focus-targeted the tank... and waited.
The tank didn't move. It was a human warrior. The mage got jumpy and started bouncing around. The priest healer tossed a few heals over time (HoTs) on the tank, trying to spur him to move. I /poke-d him. Nothing. Then when he started moving... he was walking. The rest of the party shot ahead.... then came back. The tank slowly sauntered up to the first mob and FACE PULLED it (face pulling = walking up to the mob and getting it's attention via your very presence, instead of using any ability to generate threat and actually try to keep it ON you - not something any tank should be doing on purpose, and something all non-tank characters should do everything they can to AVOID).
I don't know if the mage didn't notice that the tank had only face pulled, or if they were just so jumpy and impatient that they didn't care... But they laid down their ice AOE (area of effect attack - an attack that hits all mobs in a certain radius, usually chosen by placing a "target circle" on the ground that only the caster can see) around the mobs that the tank had annoyed... And of course, with the tank not trying to gain threat, the mobs went straight for the mage. The tank slowly walked back toward the mage as if to take aggro away from him, but by then, the mobs had decided to leave the mage and pounce on the healer. I reacted the only way I could - I shifted to bear form, I hit Enrage, and I Challenging Roar'd the mobs onto me, gained threat with a Demoralizing Roar and two Swipes, and tanked the pull. The healer immediately shifted to healing me, and the DPS focused on the mobs. By the time the walking-tank had gotten back over to where we were, the mobs were dead.
I asked in party chat, "Tank, why walking?" I didn't get a response at first, until it was echoed by both the healer and the mage. We got one response, "Stuck. Can't stop. Lost keybinding." So the mage goes, "Look it up? Fix it?" The tank didn't respond to that... and instead started walking toward the next set of mobs. After a repeat of the previous pull (with the exception that this time, I didn't LET the mobs get on the mage or the healer before I yoinked them onto me), we vote-kicked the tank for being a troll. I mean, really? He couldn't change his keybinding? Look it up in the settings and fix it, then toggle walk OFF? It would've taken us about six hours to go through the dungeon at that pace... assuming I was able to keep everyone alive.
We requeued, with me again selecting DPS, and hoped to get a new tank. After a few minutes, a tank hadn't showed up, and the mage asked me if I could just tank it a bit while we wait, and the healer said yeah, he didn't have much time and would like to get as far as he could. So I tanked, we did small pulls... and we made it 2/3 of the way through the dungeon before our new tank showed up.
The new tank was a blood DK, who showed up mid fight and tried to steal aggro from me. I can't blame him - it must've looked like he got pulled into a mess or like we had pulled accidentally or our previous tank had ditched mid-fight. But we finished up that pull, and then he went RUNNING ahead, not giving us time to loot.
I shifted to cat and hit dash to keep up with him. He got out of line-of-sight of our healer, and died. I once again had to shift to bear and gain aggro to keep the party from wiping. (Now, to make matters worse, I had shifted talent trees back to my cat tree after the tank had shown up, so now I was tanking in my DPS spec, so I lost a lot of my armor boosts and other things I have talented in my bear spec.) I was focused on keeping the mobs off the other party members.... and I got out of LoS of the healer, and I died. But the mage was able to AOE down the last two surviving mobs, and we didn't wipe. I couldn't help but notice that the healer rezzed me before rezzing our new tank, who had been dead twice as long. :P Favoritism, much? :P
Right after that, our healer said he had to go and apologized. The mage and I wished him well, and he dropped party. The tank became dungeon leader, and requeued us to pull a new healer.... then took off running. I said, "Where are you going?!" He responded, "Drood heals."
Drood is a fairly derogatory way to refer to a druid, but I let it go. I chased after him in cat form. "I'm dual Feral, DPS and Tank. I'm not spec'd for healing!" But it was too late, he'd already pulled. I wasn't interested in being part of a wipe, and the other two dps (the talkative mage and the hunter who was so silent he might as well not have been there) had no way of doing anything, so... I shifted into caster form, targeted the tank, and started healing.
I've never healed before. Ever. To me, it's the most stressful role in the dungeon, though now both Nyx and Lona have told me otherwise. I can't change how it feels to me. And I kept remembering the things I know about druids.
First thing's first - a druid of ANY spec (Feral, Balance, or Restoration), can technically perform any role up until level 60, limited only by player skill. At that point, the talent trees and the talents gained from them start to become mutually exclusive. This is why, at 60, I changed my previous dual spec (Feral/Balance) into a Feral/Feral, with my secondary feral specialization gearing toward the bear talents and my primary gearing toward the cat for DPS and questing. As a dual feral druid, my armor stacked agility and stamina, and I was gemming for dodge and crit, so that (until endgame level, at least), I could have one armor set that could perform both possible roles. As much of a pain as it is to build the two sets at endgame level, to try and do it WHILE LEVELING is almost impossible, since you level past items almost as fast as you acquire them.
The point of this being that I could either tank or DPS in dungeons, but I didn't have intellect or spirit on my gear - I wasn't talented to heal. Yet here I was. To make matters worse, the tank didn't wait for me to regain mana after the fights - he just kept going. Thank goodness I had some dropped mana potions on me, and the druid's ability of Innervate to renew my own mana supply (though that ability isn't nearly as good as it used to be, and I really was feeling that particular nerf).
Anyway, I fell into a rhythm and relaxed. Between my limited healing ability and the fact that the tank was a blood DK which has a lot of passive self-heals, no one was dying and we were still moving. Just as we got to the last boss, the new healer finally showed up. A nelf Priest. I relaxed and shifted back to cat to DPS the final fight (I was going to finish the dungeon in the role I'd originally selected, dangit!).
Mid way through the fight, the tank died. I guess the healer lost sight of him around the boss' legs or something, or maybe the healer had to sneeze. I have no idea. All I know is that once again, I had to step up. I leaped backwards (I WISH cats had the Hunter's Disengage ability!), targeted the tank, and hit my in-battle resurrect spell (SO glad I carried reagents for Rebirth). I tossed a heal on him, then shifted to bear and pulled the boss off of the mage and hunter who'd been bouncing him back and forth between them. The healer threw off a "WTF?" but I ignored it. When the DK could tank again, I shifted back to caster and started healing him. The healer that had come in "WTF"'d again, and I said, "We've been through most of the dungeon like this. Just... dps it." And with the healer's "whatever," he and I officially switched roles. I healed the tank, and the healer DPS'd the boss. We finished the dungeon, the healer left immediately, the tank waved at me and left... and the mage told me I was awesome. The hunter /bow'd to me, and I took a bow of my own.
Druids are versatile. I knew this from the very beginning - they're one of only two classes in the game (the other being Paladin) that can fulfill all 3 dungeon roles. But I'm fairly certain that Paladins become rather talent-locked early in their leveling lives, as I've gathered by both playing my pally and watching Lona play hers, whereas, as I've said before, druids can fulfill any role until L60. And apparently, in the right situation, until L64.
I am more confident in my tanking abilities than I ever have been before, and this experience has made me want to roll a druid healer at some point, just to get an idea of what I'd really have been capable of if I'd been properly geared and talented for what I was doing.
In other news, last weekend, Destylae ran her first heroic in which I was NOT in a guild group. I did good, reliable damage, no one complained, we CLEARED Halls Of Origination, and at the end - I won the roll on the Chaos Orb. That's one down, five to go toward making my new gun. :D I'm confident in my abilities as a Hunter, finally. And Kalitri keeps reminding me just how GOOD of a druid I make. Honestly, I can't wait to play Reyune some tonight... Let's see if I'm getting to be a better DK as well!
That being said, the events described in this blog happened earlier in the week. I apologize for any inaccuracies if anyone involved happens to read this. :P Also, I'm doing some further organization on this blog - new subcategories have been added under Tooth & Arrows, so that people who only wish to read my WoW blogs can do so, and people who are interested in the other types of games this blog is about can just look at THOSE if they wish! (This doesn't effect you if you're reading this on Blogger or LJ. Blogger already keeps the sub-blogs separate and LJ... well, I THINK I've done a good job tagging all entries!) It'll be a couple of days while I go back into the archives and properly sort all the T&A blogs into their respective new categories, though. Please pardon the dust while I remodel.
That being said, on to the meat of this blog!
I've recently started playing Kalitri, my previously mentioned Worgen Druid, on WoW again. Perhaps it was this month's holiday, Brewfest, (Des has another title now!) and the chance to get a couple of rare mounts and pets that has spurred me on, but for whatever reason, she's gone from L61 to nearly L65 in the last two days, and I only stopped playing her because I ran out of "rested." I'm going to be playing Reyune (my DK) while she has a chance to build up her rested status again. I want her and Rey both to be 85 as soon as possible. And fast leveling means one thing - dungeoning. Both characters are tanks, so this should be easy, except that I still have my aversion/fear of tanking to a point.
That makes this kind of difficult.
However, something happened two nights ago that has given me a huge confidence boost in my tanking ability. I was queuing as DPS so I could do other things around waiting to dungeon, and I had the time to do so. I got into The Underbog for Kalitri's first time after less than half an hour wait (nice, for DPS), and was looking forward to trying out my new "assist the tank" macro. I focus-targeted the tank... and waited.
The tank didn't move. It was a human warrior. The mage got jumpy and started bouncing around. The priest healer tossed a few heals over time (HoTs) on the tank, trying to spur him to move. I /poke-d him. Nothing. Then when he started moving... he was walking. The rest of the party shot ahead.... then came back. The tank slowly sauntered up to the first mob and FACE PULLED it (face pulling = walking up to the mob and getting it's attention via your very presence, instead of using any ability to generate threat and actually try to keep it ON you - not something any tank should be doing on purpose, and something all non-tank characters should do everything they can to AVOID).
I don't know if the mage didn't notice that the tank had only face pulled, or if they were just so jumpy and impatient that they didn't care... But they laid down their ice AOE (area of effect attack - an attack that hits all mobs in a certain radius, usually chosen by placing a "target circle" on the ground that only the caster can see) around the mobs that the tank had annoyed... And of course, with the tank not trying to gain threat, the mobs went straight for the mage. The tank slowly walked back toward the mage as if to take aggro away from him, but by then, the mobs had decided to leave the mage and pounce on the healer. I reacted the only way I could - I shifted to bear form, I hit Enrage, and I Challenging Roar'd the mobs onto me, gained threat with a Demoralizing Roar and two Swipes, and tanked the pull. The healer immediately shifted to healing me, and the DPS focused on the mobs. By the time the walking-tank had gotten back over to where we were, the mobs were dead.
I asked in party chat, "Tank, why walking?" I didn't get a response at first, until it was echoed by both the healer and the mage. We got one response, "Stuck. Can't stop. Lost keybinding." So the mage goes, "Look it up? Fix it?" The tank didn't respond to that... and instead started walking toward the next set of mobs. After a repeat of the previous pull (with the exception that this time, I didn't LET the mobs get on the mage or the healer before I yoinked them onto me), we vote-kicked the tank for being a troll. I mean, really? He couldn't change his keybinding? Look it up in the settings and fix it, then toggle walk OFF? It would've taken us about six hours to go through the dungeon at that pace... assuming I was able to keep everyone alive.
We requeued, with me again selecting DPS, and hoped to get a new tank. After a few minutes, a tank hadn't showed up, and the mage asked me if I could just tank it a bit while we wait, and the healer said yeah, he didn't have much time and would like to get as far as he could. So I tanked, we did small pulls... and we made it 2/3 of the way through the dungeon before our new tank showed up.
The new tank was a blood DK, who showed up mid fight and tried to steal aggro from me. I can't blame him - it must've looked like he got pulled into a mess or like we had pulled accidentally or our previous tank had ditched mid-fight. But we finished up that pull, and then he went RUNNING ahead, not giving us time to loot.
I shifted to cat and hit dash to keep up with him. He got out of line-of-sight of our healer, and died. I once again had to shift to bear and gain aggro to keep the party from wiping. (Now, to make matters worse, I had shifted talent trees back to my cat tree after the tank had shown up, so now I was tanking in my DPS spec, so I lost a lot of my armor boosts and other things I have talented in my bear spec.) I was focused on keeping the mobs off the other party members.... and I got out of LoS of the healer, and I died. But the mage was able to AOE down the last two surviving mobs, and we didn't wipe. I couldn't help but notice that the healer rezzed me before rezzing our new tank, who had been dead twice as long. :P Favoritism, much? :P
Right after that, our healer said he had to go and apologized. The mage and I wished him well, and he dropped party. The tank became dungeon leader, and requeued us to pull a new healer.... then took off running. I said, "Where are you going?!" He responded, "Drood heals."
Drood is a fairly derogatory way to refer to a druid, but I let it go. I chased after him in cat form. "I'm dual Feral, DPS and Tank. I'm not spec'd for healing!" But it was too late, he'd already pulled. I wasn't interested in being part of a wipe, and the other two dps (the talkative mage and the hunter who was so silent he might as well not have been there) had no way of doing anything, so... I shifted into caster form, targeted the tank, and started healing.
I've never healed before. Ever. To me, it's the most stressful role in the dungeon, though now both Nyx and Lona have told me otherwise. I can't change how it feels to me. And I kept remembering the things I know about druids.
First thing's first - a druid of ANY spec (Feral, Balance, or Restoration), can technically perform any role up until level 60, limited only by player skill. At that point, the talent trees and the talents gained from them start to become mutually exclusive. This is why, at 60, I changed my previous dual spec (Feral/Balance) into a Feral/Feral, with my secondary feral specialization gearing toward the bear talents and my primary gearing toward the cat for DPS and questing. As a dual feral druid, my armor stacked agility and stamina, and I was gemming for dodge and crit, so that (until endgame level, at least), I could have one armor set that could perform both possible roles. As much of a pain as it is to build the two sets at endgame level, to try and do it WHILE LEVELING is almost impossible, since you level past items almost as fast as you acquire them.
The point of this being that I could either tank or DPS in dungeons, but I didn't have intellect or spirit on my gear - I wasn't talented to heal. Yet here I was. To make matters worse, the tank didn't wait for me to regain mana after the fights - he just kept going. Thank goodness I had some dropped mana potions on me, and the druid's ability of Innervate to renew my own mana supply (though that ability isn't nearly as good as it used to be, and I really was feeling that particular nerf).
Anyway, I fell into a rhythm and relaxed. Between my limited healing ability and the fact that the tank was a blood DK which has a lot of passive self-heals, no one was dying and we were still moving. Just as we got to the last boss, the new healer finally showed up. A nelf Priest. I relaxed and shifted back to cat to DPS the final fight (I was going to finish the dungeon in the role I'd originally selected, dangit!).
Mid way through the fight, the tank died. I guess the healer lost sight of him around the boss' legs or something, or maybe the healer had to sneeze. I have no idea. All I know is that once again, I had to step up. I leaped backwards (I WISH cats had the Hunter's Disengage ability!), targeted the tank, and hit my in-battle resurrect spell (SO glad I carried reagents for Rebirth). I tossed a heal on him, then shifted to bear and pulled the boss off of the mage and hunter who'd been bouncing him back and forth between them. The healer threw off a "WTF?" but I ignored it. When the DK could tank again, I shifted back to caster and started healing him. The healer that had come in "WTF"'d again, and I said, "We've been through most of the dungeon like this. Just... dps it." And with the healer's "whatever," he and I officially switched roles. I healed the tank, and the healer DPS'd the boss. We finished the dungeon, the healer left immediately, the tank waved at me and left... and the mage told me I was awesome. The hunter /bow'd to me, and I took a bow of my own.
Druids are versatile. I knew this from the very beginning - they're one of only two classes in the game (the other being Paladin) that can fulfill all 3 dungeon roles. But I'm fairly certain that Paladins become rather talent-locked early in their leveling lives, as I've gathered by both playing my pally and watching Lona play hers, whereas, as I've said before, druids can fulfill any role until L60. And apparently, in the right situation, until L64.
I am more confident in my tanking abilities than I ever have been before, and this experience has made me want to roll a druid healer at some point, just to get an idea of what I'd really have been capable of if I'd been properly geared and talented for what I was doing.
In other news, last weekend, Destylae ran her first heroic in which I was NOT in a guild group. I did good, reliable damage, no one complained, we CLEARED Halls Of Origination, and at the end - I won the roll on the Chaos Orb. That's one down, five to go toward making my new gun. :D I'm confident in my abilities as a Hunter, finally. And Kalitri keeps reminding me just how GOOD of a druid I make. Honestly, I can't wait to play Reyune some tonight... Let's see if I'm getting to be a better DK as well!
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