Tag: WoW

There’s a certain irony in my game play lately. On one hand I’m quite content with my adventures in World of Warcraft which makes for some pretty boring blog posts (there’s no drama after all) and on the other hand it leaves me feeling incredibly disconnected from the small community of bloggers and friends that I’ve ‘met’ on twitter. After all, I’m not playing Civilization V, I’m not exploring FFXIV, I’m not looking forward to the CCP/White Wolf recently announced vampire MMO, I’m not eagerly awaiting any MMO (SW:TOR, Secret World, GW2) or game (DA:2) and I don’t have a strong opinion on any of the drama that may be going on. That’s right, for the first time ever I’m simply enjoying the games I am playing (WoW and Minecraft for the most part).

Who would have thought.

Yesterday was a pretty good day game wise. My Spriest picked up a dps trinket from Heroic Pit, and also managed to snag a main hand weapon from the first named, allowing me to finally use the off hand from Halls of Reflection for both my heal and DPS spec. During the instance, the healer (a druid) decided they would leave. When the healer in my group leaves I always switch my talents and queue as the healer – I know I can heal every zone just fine. We finished the instance without incident. I also healed Halls of Reflection (heroic) twice. I was looking for the healer trinket from the second boss, but it hasn’t dropped yet. One of these days I’ll get it. Both instances went just fine.

I really enjoy having both a heal spec and a dps spec. Afterward Toargo and myself completed a few older dungeons. Magister’s Terrace (heroic) for an attempt at the mount (which still has not dropped for us) and Netherstorm instances so that I can work my faction and finally be able to complete those on heroic. Even though I’ve out leveled the zones, I enjoy working on the achievements.

I’m still working on collection the 200 brewfest tokens I need. I absolutely hate the ram repeatable that sends you into the city to act as a crier so I tend to stick with the two that I know I can do, the Dwarven one (although my server has been losing the battle these days) and the repeatable ram one that doesn’t have a blue ? over the NPC’s head so it’s hard to tell that it’s there. Also no mount yet in my brewfest bag that I do daily but I’ll keep trying.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

I have to say, I really like how talent options are done in World of Warcraft. I like that you can change your talents on the go (unlike EQ2 where you’re required to travel to your home, and use your achievement mirror each time) and I like that each specialization is drastically different than the others. What I mean is: if my priest is specialized as a shadow priest (which she is more often than not) she actually does more than enough damage to be considered dps. In EQ2 if you use your healer to go down a dps line you’re not going to be competing with Tier 1 dps in groups. You’re still going to be a healer – who can do some damage.

In a lot of cases there are multiple dps lines as well which is great. For example my druid and shaman can both choose a healer talent line – or a melee dps talent line – or a caster talent line (or a combination). I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what sort of set up I’d like. Usually, I go caster talent for my OS (off spec). That way I don’t need to carry around two sets of gear (melee + healer). Since I’m so used to playing casters, I decided to take the melee rout on my shaman.

I’m bad at it. Very bad. BUT it’s a learning experience, and one that I’m sure I’ll get better at. Shaman are slightly different (enhancement) because a lot of their damage relies on random procs. There’s n0 specific cast order for max DPS, but instead there is a cast priority depending on what you have procing.

I’ve come to respect this game more then I have in previous years. Yes, anyone can play and it is quite easy – but if you want to be GOOD at it, it requires a little work and research.

How does everyone else decide which talents to select? Do you go the comfort rout, what you know? Or do you experiment with what you’ve never tried before? Let me know in comments!

Sholazar Basin, pictured above. One of my favorite zones from Wrath. I’ve spent a little time over the past two days questing here to earn some easy money (alts are expensive, and gems even more so). The priest has managed to climb her way to a 5k gs and just shy of 5k in her discipline gear. Healing is much easier now though I still have to be on the look for things like – the tank taking off and pulling everything in sight before I’m even in the zone and buffed.

I’ve learned a good number of things leveling up. I can appreciate good players. Players who (for example) ask before they mount up in The Oculus if it’s alright to ride a certain dragon mount for their achievement (that’s right, I’m looking at you mage who grabbed the healer mount without saying a word). Death Knights who don’t decide to randomly pop their army on an encounter that has a mob spitting at everyone it faces (those army zombies are incredibly annoying, flipping mobs every which way). I’d like to say that I’m learning a little more patience, but I’m not sure if that’s really true. I no longer fear pick up groups like I once had and that’s always a welcome change.

With both my warlock and priest sitting at level 80 with ok gear I’m contemplating who (if anyone) to work up next. I enjoy the process of leveling, and there isn’t such a dire need for my ‘mains’ to grind out dungeons any more aside from my dailies for frost tokens. My characters are:

• 80 Priest(Shadow/Discipline)
• 80 Warlock(Destruction/Demonology)
• 70 Shaman(Restoration/Elemental)
• 68 Death Knight
• 38 Druid
• 20 Rogue
• 18 Paladin

Both the paladin and the rogue are a lot of fun to play, but I’ve also been wondering if I should experience the alliance side of things before it all changes with Cataclysm. With the expansion looming close in the distance there’s really no great need to grind out gear to be the best of the best right now. Then of course comes the decision of what to play on the alliance side, and where.

Ah, choices!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The screen shot above shows a reference to the TV show “Lost” (the numbers are all one off from the numbers in the show). Had I not actually just finished watching all 6 seasons recently, I would have no idea what this little buried hatch in the ground represented. While some people may not like these intrusions in the game, I actually enjoy them quite a bit. They may not fit in with the lore of the game, but they’re little things that make me giggle and remind me of life outside the game (how odd is that).

With Cataclysm creeping closer and closer, I decided to delve into the beta a bit more. Not because I want to know everything there is to know about the new zones or races but because I want to know what changes are coming to my own characters. Knowing what talents are going to be moved around is important to me, especially if it affects the way I currently play my characters. You can expect a few beta posts over the next little while, hopefully no one minds (granted, this is my site, so if people DO mind there’s not a heck of a lot I’ll be doing about it).

Brewfest has been quite fun. My healer won a trinket that was actually an upgrade for the heal spec. Last night in Pit I won a 2h weapon that was a massive upgrade over what I was wearing, and my gs is resting close to 4.9k It was also a day for absolutely horrible groups, and I’m coming to hate the death knight class – but also appreciate good players. It seems like this week has brought about death knights who can not parse more then 1k – and while I can appreciate a new player, if you’re queued up for heroic Halls of Reflection, that is just not going to cut it. Then there was the two DK’s in Pit, and the DK in, well, pretty much every other zone. I’ve seen how this class plays when it’s played well (and they can be quite amazing) but this week has really been groups of pure suck.

Ah well, that’s the joys of the LFD tool.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!