What is this, forgot?

Weird guild drama, busy at work, and playing way too much...

I did every heroic on my mage Saturday save three.

My mage is now as geared as she's gonna get outside Naxx...

And then they stealth nerf my build. AND TO MAKE IT WORSE, my ret pally friend has been /w me with "QQ" the last 24 hours. Over and over.

Maybe I shouldn't have held that guild pally nerf dance off when 3.08 hit.

My guild has hit a weird point. We have way too many tanks. Enough healers, but half of em are never around, so Unbound keeps gettin drafted. (Got my t7 Helm monday, so no biggie...)

And we are crucially short decent dps. Melvin might end up getting drafted. (me: "He's only 800dps!" Them:"He's all we got!")

If it comes down to Arcane vs FFB... I'm sticking arcane. Much better survivability and dps when I gotta move. Im gonna miss my 5k arcane missile crits tho...

Anyway... the guild has asked me anchor two different Naxx groups. Which is a bit more raiding than I'd planned on. At this point we have 5 tanks, 7 healers, and an assorted cast of overly casual dps.

This last week kinda proved the point. We'd been running one Naxx-10. Wed was more or less the better players (including a drafted and protesting Unbound, who skilled or not, at least has gear) And we had the habit of takin out 2 wings in the run. (One night we killed 11 bosses in 4 hours.) Then Sat hits, the scrubs come out, and they spend 4 hours trying and failing on Maexxna. Then Sunday, "A" team, rest of wings cleared.

Monday night, we do Seph and Kel.

The problem is... the groupings are by who can play on what night. And the better players have hooked up with Naxx-25 groups, so have little interest in helping with Naxx-10. Tonight, we start the new raids with Naxx-10, group A, which seems to have all the better players and tanks. Weekends will have... Melvin. And Magebert.

I have a sense of doom... maybe this weekend I'll just work on achievements.

They make no mention of the beauty of decay

Extended maintenance tuesday... and I have the day off. Curses!

Some screenshots... here's a quest line horde NPC from Conquest Hold in grizzly hills. And what does the dominant orc female choose as accessories? Two pretty belf boy toys. About all they good for, I suppose...


It didn't end well, btw. "When I'm through with you, not even the worgs will touch your corpse..." I gotta figure out a way to work that into a conversation sometime...






Chistmas is when Santa Majeure rides the skies on her undead mount, bringing pwn to all the little noobs out there...

Maj is 80 now, Frostfire build, pushin between 1.6 and 2k dps (depending on heroic...) I'd forgotten how much fun fire could be. And how squishy the squishiest of builds was... and then she wakes to find herself no longer hit capped :(


Quotes from an early npc. You summon a goddess and she has this to say... of all the quest lines, the whole Gundrak thing is the saddest... "if our gods can die... then so can we..."
The trolls murdered their gods to save themselves from the scourge.. thats just hard core, there. As Wallace Stevens put it... "The death of one god is the death of all gods."

Um... so sometimes theres just a conversation in general chat that you just have to stay the hell away from. "Ima girl. Oh wait, Ima woman.. cuz I'm legal now."

/shudder

I really don't have to explain why I took this screenshot, now do I?

Gravity...

So, crazy Derek is staying with me.

He broke down and wept three times last night.

He's losing the ability to take care of himself.

You really shouldn't be unable to remember the last time you took a shower. Especially since he's been with me for 2 weeks now.

I'm not sure what to do about this. He has a minimum wage job. He has two sisters that are helping him. He has a friend (me) putting him up so he doesn't have to live with the sisters (whom he hates.)

And he still can't cope. Would he be better off in an institution?

Anyway... Maj is 78, and beginning the gear process. I'll have everything but my chest replaced when I turn 80. WoW Insider had a very nice mage gearing article...

I still don't know about a build for running heroics. Considering how miserable my crit will be, I'm leaning towards frost.

So... in the meantime, here's some lit stuff.

Here's a thread on military sic-fi.

A while back a recommended the adventures of Gotrek and Felix to the blogger formally known as Arms&Fury. If you're into fanboy/gaming type fantasy, this is pretty neat. It's about a dark elf renegade... like drizzt, only not.. um... a whiny little do-gooder. Personally, I'd recommend Gaunt's Ghosts by the same author, as Gaunt's Ghosts is perilously close to well written. Malus Darkblade is a bit more fun to read about tho...

I'm currently reading this. It's very evil and very non-PC. If you don't know who Oriana Fallaci was, or why someone would dedicate a book to her, you might not want to read this.

Alan Moore's Watchmen as Shakespeare. I am so terrified that the movie will do for the graphic novel what Phantom Menace did for Star Wars.

And then this...

Are you, or have you ever been, a Literature Abuser?

Literature Abuse:How many of these apply to you?

1. I have read fiction when I was depressed or to cheer myself up.
2. I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day.
3. I read rapidly, often "gulping" chapters.
4. I have sometimes read early in the morning or before work.
5. I have hidden books in different places to sneak a chapter without being seen.
6. Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read novels.
7. Sometimes I rewrite film or television dialog as the characters speak.
8. I am unable to enjoy myself with others unless there is a book nearby.
9. At a party, I will often slip off unnoticed to read.
10. Reading has made me seek haunts and companions that I would otherwise avoid.
11. I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I have finished a novel.
12. I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead.
13. I have attempted to check out more library books than permitted.
14. Most of my friends are heavy fiction readers.
15. I have sometimes passed out from a night of heavy reading.
16. I have suffered blackouts or memory loss from a bout of reading.
17. I have wept or become angry or irrational because of something I read.
18. I have sometimes wished I did not read so much.
19. Sometimes I think my reading is out of control.

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you may be a literature addict. An affirmative response to five or more indicates a serious problem. Once a relatively rare disorder, Literature Abuse, or LA, has risen to new levels due to the accessibility of higher education and increased college enrollment since the end of the Second World War. The number of literature abusers is currently at record levels.

Shamelessly stolen, of course.

Who's watching me?

There's a line by Will Ferrel's character in Zoolander...

"I feel like I'm on crazy pills!"

I've been getting that lately... in the first place, my dreams are getting even more bizzare...

One of the few I can mention without sounding even more psychotic than usual, I came back to a world I'd destroyed. With a swarm of poison snakes.

The worst part... I have absolutely no damn idea where this comes from. However, it's either this or insomnia. And I hate insomnia.

Crazy Derek is now living with me... and I have no idea how long. He's so deep in denial, it's almost impossible to get coherent information about his situation.

I'm really not capable of living with other people. Derek is testing my ability to pretend to be normal. And not be annoyed by the silliest things. Like his tendency to just pace back and forth while flipping a pen and muttering to himself for hours on end while I watch television.

I need to start changing my life. But who has that kind of time?

BRK is making QQ noises about hunter mana problems. I absolutely agree with him. I think hunter mana is gonna be a big deal movin forward. Mabd is still more or less on the shelf, doin JC dailies and makin me 300g a day.

My beautiful Majeure is now 75. I was looking at frostfire... but then decided to stay frost till 80. How badly did blizz screw up mage gearing?

We get three crafting sets. BC crafting sets were amazing... and if you were cloth, and not a tailor, you were seriously behind the curve, gearwise.

For blacksmiths... the titansteel gear is extremely useful, and more than capable of putting you on a naxx level.

What does cloth get in Wrath?

The priest set... int, spirit, spellpower and mp5.
The lock set... int, sta, spellpower and spell hit.
The mage set... int, spirit, spellpower and HASTE.

What vital stat is missing here? WHERE THE HELL IS MY CRIT?

Why bother getting spellweave for my mage when my first task is gonna be grabbing ANY FREAKING OTHER EPIC CLOTH to replace it? SPIRIT? FREAKING SPIRIT?

/cry

So, my loverly mage will have two epic rings and an epic neck waiting for her at 80. If I can find someone to make the deathchill cloak, I'll have that as well. As for the rest of the gear... Ima pretty screwed.

On an entirely unrelated note... I always wondered about this guy.

Then I heard the Steve Miller Band's song The Joker recently.

Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me maurice
Cause I speak of the pompitous of love

Im a joker
Im a smoker
Im a midnight toker
I get my lovin on the run
Wooo wooooo

Did I get it right, Rats?

I can tell you why the end will never come

I was chatting with Melvin yesterday... he begins with:

"I have a Melvin story for your blog!"

... ok...

"I was doin quests in Icecrown, and I landed on the wrong ship... and got killed!"


... ok... um... but you're a pally... why not jump off and bubble before you land?

"Oh, you can do that?"

I had to explain to him that that wasn't quite a Melvin story. My gentle readers are connoisseurs of silly, and that was about just gettin stupid. See... we all get stupid. We don't all get Melvin.

There's this little horde quest up in borean tundra. At bogglesworth point, horde side, fizzcrank airstrip alliance side. Theres this vertical cave system with a buncha snobolds and magnataur in there. So, my first time through... its like 5 in the morning, and I'm 4 quests from done with the borean side of things. I get the quest.

"Blah blah, X is missing, blah blah, hes being held captive, go do something."

So I jump into the pit, see the boss, torch the boss, go back to base.

No complete. Dammit. Read quest again... "Find X"

Jump back in, find X. Talk to X, who's dead and floating. Get new quest, "held here by power of Y"

Great, go kill boss, go back to base. No complete.

Read quest again. "Y != boss"

Dammit... jump back into pit, look around, find a named snobold... kill him. Get complete. Read quest again... report back to X. Go to X.

"Thank you, I'm free! Take my body back to A (the original quest giver)."

Go back to base. No complete. Reread quest. "Loot my body below where I'm floating, and take back to A."

At this point I'm cursin up a storm. I jump back in, loot the body, fight my way out of the pit for the umpteenth time, get to base... turn in quest and I'm done. And wondering why, Horde side, we dont have to kill the damn boss at the bottom of the pit...

But this isn't Melvin. This is just bein stupid, at the end of a 12 hour gamin session. I explain this to Melvin.

"Well, what are you gonna write about in the blog then?"

I was thinking about telling them about your views on that mage fire talent hot streak. You know the one, after two crits, get a insta cast pyroblast...

"Oh yeah, great for pvp, terrible for raiding."

Do tell...

"Well, in pvp, if you get the chance to shoot someone in the back... this talent will proc. It's like it knows."

Um... isnt that cuz you pop combustion, so you're pretty much assured 2 crits in a row?

"Oh, yeah. Never thought of that."

But what about for raiding?

"Oh, all those instant pyroblasts make you run outta mana too fast. Better to just keep casting scorch and ignore the procs."

@Charles. Thanks for the advice. I'd read about that before... but lets face it... "ride yo 72 ass through terrain filled with level 80 elites, then try to kill yourself in the right place" is kinda a pain. However, you kinda inspired me to try it. And miracle of miracles... I got it done. Can't quite believe it myself.

As for the pvp side. I got a tip on that from another friend. Hit the wondervolt in Dal, then go to wintergrasp. Don't matter what level you are if your inna tank!

"How can you do it? Shoot innocent gnomes and dwarves?"

"Easy! Just don't lead em as much!"

AND! I was told (have yet to check out) that if you die in Wintergrasp, you can release to Dal. And so get the wondervolt again, and portal back in... I might try this tomorrow, last day for holiday...

Came the last night of sadness

Weird Christmas season. Crazy Derrek is back... I was trying to avoid him, but he snuck into my apartment building...

He had been living with his mother, in her assisted living joint. But she passed out on the bus last month, and never woke up.

So Derek is living with his sisters. And he HATES his sisters. And he's stopped bathing. He wants to stay with me for a while...

A friend of mine was disgnosed with a lymphoma. Kinda like BRK's friend is raising money for. It's not one of the auto fatal ones... its treatable with chemo therapy. The only problem...

She just got pregnant after trying for a few years.

Chemo started last friday.

So, the guild is getting a little bigger. Got an uber prot pally, another coupla healers. Unbound got her 25man raid pants, and is pretty much finished with gearing. (Just needs some shoulders... and maybe trinkets...)

I finally started leveling Majeure. Did UK as 70, and pulled 1300 dps. Which makes me wonder exactly how people pull less at 80. I realize that there's a huge freaking crit nerf, but still... I wonder if undergeared mages are better off usin frost builds till they get the gear for end game... rather than FFB, which seems terribly dependent upon crit...

Respecced Mabd as BM. Turns out MM/Surv runs outta mana during the first aimed shot cooldown. Sigh... lost 1200 RAP in the switch. But a kill commanded gorilla is an amazing thing. And I can't wait to try out the berserk rabid t rex...

Burnt out a lot on the achievements. You need flying for one of em, horde side (guy is on one of the icce crown airships, and you can't summon to him). I think that one broke me.

And dreams that had never come true

I'm still a little boggled that someone rejected Megs assa healer. And she has a neat post up on pally healing talents...

I wish I could do something like that, but my access to WoW stuff at work is kinda limited. BTW, if you a fan of enhance shammydom, Windfury hassa neat little brief on the changes so far...

I'm beginning to love my holy pally brethren. They just complement resto shammies so nicely in raids. Between mana totems and wisdom blessings, single target and raid target healings... specially once the hated CoH and Wild Growth spells get the big ol' nerf hammer. Tho I'm not so sure how effective Wild Growth is, considering I've not run with a resto druid yet.

CoH is kinda just a rude little healing spell. If it was a class, it would be ret pally. Sure as hell makes Loatheb easy tho. Or does until the nerf comin...

As fer resto shammies.. apparently too many resto shammies saw what I saw... ignore healing wave, spam lesser healing wave, and chain heal/riptide as needed. So, blizz is gonna make lesser healing wave a bit less mana efficient, and make healing wave a bit more oomphy. (I might have to start using healing wave...)

But between Megs and Av, my guild holy pal (he's weird... he hates ret pallies as much as I do... and leveled to 80 as holy...) I'm getting a bit of a handle on the psychological differences between the specs...

I mean, resto shammies are a lot like druids... you DON'T want to get behind on your heals... if the tank drops below 35%, you gonna have problems getting him back up... OTOH, you have so much bonus healing flying around, group healing isn't a problem.

Holy pals tend to be a bit more confident... but my friend is quite a bit paranoid about his mana consumption. Like shammies, they depend on that mp5 crap in gearing, unlike the spirit hogging druids and priests... but unlike shammies, they don't have the mana regen bells and whistles...

Anyway, I highly recommend the Windfury post. Elemental is starting to look very viable with the upcoming changes. I was talking to Melvin, and he hated them, which is probably a good sign.

Fer god's sake... he chain casts scorch in raids. And keeps molten armor up during Loatheb. Sigh. Oh yeah... have a link... and tell me, is that not the most evil internet thing you've ever heard of?