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New Blog is: Specced for Drama

 

Guildless Again

Well, here I go again on my own,

Going down the only road I’ve ever known.

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone…

~Whitesnake

I haven’t made up my mind, and I’m definitely wasting time.

I left my guild last night, or they kicked me, or something. I don’t even begin to know exactly what happened. They had hardly been communicative to me lately, although I hadn’t been so vocal lately either. Its the end of the expansion. What did they expect?

I just don’t know. It was probably my fault. I don’t really want to go into details here.

I feel pretty sad about the whole thing. I genuinely liked most of the people in the guild, and I thought they liked me. I guess I was mistaken. I don’t wish any ill will upon any of them. I hope things work out for the guild. I hope things work out for me without them.

I’m feeling a bit lost and lonely and I don’t know quite what to do. I guess I just bide my time and wait until Cata comes out.

Lord knows I’ve been getting the alt itch again. Who knows, maybe I’ll just end up truly playing the altoholic come Cata. Who needs raiding when there’s questing and RP and 5 mans and PVP to do?

In the Spirit of Hallow’s End…

Hallow’s End has come and passed, and hardly a peep about it came from me. I’m not your typical holiday junkie. What I yearn for is more of the atmosphere of the holidays. So, without further ado, I present to you a mystery:

 

There is a spooky place out in Duskwood. Errmm… I mean, spookier than most places in Duskwood. It’s called Beggar’s Haunt, and no one seems to be able to explain its existence.

Located at coordinates 90, 30, is what appears to be the grave of a very prominent person. You reach it by taking the road from Darkshire towards Deadwind Pass. There is a path with archways to the left which meanders past a destroyed tower where a Forsaken Apothecary sits. If you continue around the tower the path will lead you to this spot.

There is a sarcophagus in the center with benches circling it. At the head and under the central arch, is a stone marker or altar. There are two smaller arches connected by latticework on either side, and behind these arches are statues.

These statues are the same model as those around the Dark Portal (similar statues found at Twilight Ridge in Nagrand and the Altars of Storms).

I’ve done my bit of research, and no one seems to be able to say what this place is. It is obviously a grave, but who’s? People have been asking this question since Vanilla and we are still no closer to the answer.

Thank you to Spellpower for showing me this secret.

Ice in Northrend

Another alt has made it through Outlands, and so arrives in Northrend, ready to kick some ass and take some names.

I think I spoke once about how everyone takes the obligatory going through the Dark Portal picture of their toons, but no one does a going to Northrend picture. Well, here ya go.

I'm on a boat!

Viva leveled through Borean Tundra with Totallytotem. Ice is going through Howling Fjord with Torq. We’re quite the odd couple. He’s a gnome, I’m a draenei. Why don’t I have any screenshots with him? Oh, that’s right. She’s too fabulous to include anyone else in her pictures, it would just mar her image.

Having landed at Valgarde with supplies.

I’ve been questing questing questing, because I’m kinda scared to tank yet. WTB replacements for my crappy starter DK gear. I figure I’ll wait until I hit 70 and then see whats on the AH. I’m finding that there are way too many quest rewards that are purely for Holy Paladins. What did Blizzard think, we’d end up with no Holy Pallies if they didn’t bombard them with gear?

Most fun quest in Howling Fjord so far?

Harpoon Surfing!

 

 

Utgarde Keep Brings Out the Worst in People

I’ve noticed that for some reason if I get a random Utgarde Keep when I do my random heroics, for some reason it seems to end up a struggle, and not because the dungeon is hard. I think people get complacent and think its just UK, I can eff around and do whatever I want and roflstomp this dungeon. Last night was no exception.

The second pull in the dungeon often tanks pull a group of like 8 instead of cautiously pulling one group then the other, because there is one guy that pats across. With the changes to consecration, it has been taking paladin tanks an extra second to get full aggro on these larger groups.

Last night, the pugger in question was a random DK. He ran in immediately and Blood Boiled before the tank had threat on a majority of the mobs. Squishy DPS DK got the attention of all of the mobs, and the following is what happened:

For some reason I didn’t manage to get a screenshot of me telling him he probably shouldn’t Blood Boil before the tank has aggro. What followed was this gem:

Seriously, what kind of DK’s rotation involves running in and Blood Boiling to start before even applying diseases? If he was tanking it would have made some sense if he was trying to rush and get some quick AoE aggro, I do the same thing on my DK tank sometimes (particularly if I have a gogogo in the group). This makes zero sense if you are in a dps role, your blood boil will do more damage if you use it after applying diseases.

We ended up kicking him because he was obviously being a jerk.

The funniest part was after we kicked him, the pally tank chimed in and said, “I had no idea what was going on. I had that guy on ignore from the start.”

As much as I hate getting blamed for things that aren’t my fault and being chewed out when I speak reason, I kinda liked being called a “bitch ass healer.” I know he didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it did kind of tickle me.

Viva – The Bitch Ass Healer

Blatantly Stealing Ideas from WoW Insider

Today’s Breakfast Topic on WoW Insider was “What prompted your class choice?”

I couldn’t resist posting about this, as it is a topic near and dear to my heart.

So, like many others my introduction to WoW was through a friend. I had played Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights prior. My friend got tired of hearing me complain about how bad Neverwinter Nights 2 was, and so referred me to WoW.

I putzed around, and as I had played a Paladin in NWN, I thought I’d give it a try. I leveled a dwarven paladin to about level 15 and then deleted her. For some reason it just didn’t click. So I asked my friend what he thought would be a good choice. He thought the best choice would be a warlock.

So Ashwynn was born. I toiled to get her to 58, even as the world was changing around me with the transition into The Burning Crusade. I struggled to learn this new game. My friend had to teach me how to make my voidwalker tank for me. I was slow to grasp how a warlock really worked. I kept pushing thinking that things would magically be awesome when I reached level cap. When I hit 58 and it was time for me to make the trek into Outlands I stopped.

The new reroll realm Cairne was being introduced, and it seemed like a perfect chance for me to learn to play with lots of other people leveling up also, everyone starting on a fresh clean slate. It was the perfect choice for me and the priest class was the perfect fit for me (a choice I made based on the suggestion of my now ex-husband). Amaranth was born!

Healing is the thing I like to do apparently. I struggle on any characters that can’t heal, although I am learning to grow away from that. I keep trying other roles because I feel like I need to branch out, but healing is really my favorite thing.

I have since gone back and attempted to play Ashwynn again and again. Her current status at level 70 as a destro lock is the most fun I have ever had on her, but I’m still not sure it really clicks.

With the changes to the priest class, I have made a conscious choice to switch mains to my druid, yet it still doesn’t sit perfectly right with me. In fact, it kind of breaks my heart a little. Ama is the heart and soul of my game experience in WoW, and it kind of hurts to think I may be shelving her.

Although my first character was not a priest, and even though my main may be changing, I still first and foremost consider myself a little night elf priest, traipsing through Teldrassil with her good friend at her side.

I miss you, MLJ. Come back and help me learn to love my priest again?

Gender Issues at Blizzcon, Hawt PCs and NPCs, Who Cares?

The infamous Victoria’s Secret catalogue question has been making its rounds on the blogosphere, and I am jumping on the bandwagon. The entire Open Q&A session text can be found here.

I love what you guys have done with WoW, I love that there’s a lot of strong female chars, though I wonder if we can have some that didnt look like they came out of a Victoria’s Secrets catalogue?

Which catalogue would you like them step out of then? We feel ya, we want to vary our female chars more in the future. So yeah we’ll pick different catalogues.

NPCs

This got me thinking about the female role models in WoW, and what they are wearing. The following are only those currently appearing in game.

Alexstrasza – yep, skimplily clad

Sylvanas Windrunner – also skimpily clad

Jaina Proudmoore – belly showing, but well covered

Vareesa Windrunner – suitable armor, not skimpy at all

Tyrande – tasteful robes suitable to a priestess

Greatmother Geyah – tasteful robes suitable to an elder

Shandris Feathermoon – armor suitable to a Sentinel

Magatha Grimtotem – very low cut

Lady Liadrin – armor suitable to a paladin

High Priestess Ishanah – belly showing, but well covered

Moira Thaurissan (aka Bronzebeard) – very scantily clad

The Black Bride – suitable armor

Of these twelve, I consider four of them to be unreasonably skimpy, 2 of them show belly but are otherwise acceptable, and 6 of them are well armored or geared for their class/race. Really, women are outraged over 1/3 of the NPCs in the world dressing a little naughty?

Players

Now, let’s take a look at what we are wearing as players.

Tier 7 (Naxxramas):

DK, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Tier 8 (Ulduar):

DK, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Tier 9 (Trial of the Crusader):

DK, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Tier 10 (Ice Crown Citadel):

DK, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Although I did struggle to find screenshots of every set on female models I did find a majority of them. The trend this expansion has been very covered up. If anything is showing, it’s a little bit of belly. I haven’t seen anything low cut this expansion at all.

My Thoughts

I am a woman, and I like my characters in a fantasy game to be scantily clad. I give my characters naughty roleplay or city walking outfits because I think it looks cool and I like it (see here). I like looking at it. I don’t know what that says about me or my own self image or whatever, and I don’t care. I like to look good, and I wasn’t impressed by the tier gear this expansion.

I find it frustrating that the questioner at Blizzcon (who I assume was female) did not do thorough research before asking such an inane question of the panel. I’d be more interested to hear they are putting Jaina in a more proud position lore-wise and making her less of a spineless, sniveling crybaby, than that they cover her belly up.

After hearing this questioner and the outcry from many women throughout the blogosphere, my fear is that the gear in Cataclysm is going to have us wearing boxes. Afterall, how much more covered up can we get?

The Best Halls of Stone Ever

Over the weekend I ran quite a few heroics with guild mates, just for the heck of it. One such run consisted of me on Vivacious healing and 2 enhancement shaman guildies. Using the LFD tool we picked up a paladin tank and a mage.

As seems to be common on Viva, we got Halls of Stone. We plugged through the trash easily and when we came up to the intersection to choose which boss to go to the paladin went left to the Brann event.

At this point my guildies and myself questioned him, asking why we are skipping bosses.

The tank replied, “Most people run these dungeons for the points not for the gear.”

Confused, my guildies and I had a brief discussion in vent, basically went along the lines of, “The blues that drop off the side bosses? Is that what he’s talking about? None of us need blues. Does he know that every boss killed gives Justice Points?”

At which point one of us typed just that, “Every boss killed gives Justice Points, so it makes sense to do all of them.”

The tank seemingly conceded and seemed to agree that we’d kill all the bosses after the Brann event.

Skip forward and we have easily completed the event, despite the tank not even attempting to actually tank (my shaman guildies make great tanks!) and are heading back to that fateful intersection once more. I say in vent, “How much you wanna bet he has a change of heart and decides to skip the other bosses?”

No one wanted to bet with me.

The tank, just as I thought, headed down the right path ahead of all of us towards the end boss. Myself and all of the DPS stop at the intersection and have a brief conversation, at which point we determine that the shamans can tank the rest of the instance and tank be damned.

We head left towards the Maiden, easily trouncing through trash. As we get up to the boss the tank joins us and actually decides to do some tanking. I guess he has had another change of heart?

After the Maiden is dead he says, “Ooooo! 16 Justice Points. Pfffft.”

To which I responded, “If you don’t want to do the other bosses then leave.”

Several other snarky comments later and we ended up voting to kick him out.

My shamans tanked the rest of the dungeon quite easily. It was actually kind of exciting to heal. I only lost one of them once because they ran ahead of me out of range.

I guess the whole thing kind of confuses me. Why would he scoff at 16 Justice Points when the end boss gives 24. Doing two extra bosses nets you 32 points. Why would you skip that? I guess it makes sense for a tank though, since they get instant dungeons when they queue. For the rest of us who have to wait 5-20 minutes for a dungeon to pop, it makes no sense to skip bosses.

Lesson learned: Think outside the box when these kind of situations arise. Communicate with your fellow Puggers (admittedly much easier if some of them are your guildies). Don’t let one jerk spoil it for everyone. 🙂

 

Ice Ice Baby

Why yes, I am a Blood Knight

Introducing Icelica who, contrary to logic, is a Blood tank. Yes, that’s right, I’m trying tanking again, and contrary to past experience, I’m loving it. Maybe its because DK tanking is so freaking easy at this level, or maybe its because I got a pep talk from Spellpower on how not to let the douchebags get to you.

I bought her a beautiful roleplay outfit (seen above). Death Knights should have been the original Blood Knights, screw those Elven bastards. Yeah, she’ll make your Blood Boil alright. I think the simple beauty of this toon is making me love her despite everything else going against her (namely that she’s a tank).

Don’t get me wrong, I love tanking, I’m just one of those people who likes to take it slow. I like to look at the pull and make a decision on how to pull it, not just run through room to room, just barely holding onto aggro and things being extremely chaotic. Yeah I know, I’m in the wrong expansion pack. I’ve had my share of Gogogo douches. They’ve got nothing on the plethora of Death Knights running around being horribad at this level.

I’ve gotten into groups consisting of four Death Knights and one healer, and all of the other Death Knights thinking they can do a better job of tanking than I can. I’ve learned that if there is more than one other DK in the group that I should maybe just bail ahead of time and save myself some grief.

There’s something about these level 60ish DKs. They have this take on the world kind of attitude, like nothing can mar them. Their epeens are enormous. And I have to admit, I’m kind of the same way. But whenever I play a tank I end up kind of being a diva. Maybe it’s more in the nature of the role than in the nature of the class.

I mostly just sympathize with healers. I try my best to do damage control when I’m not tanking in these groups. Death gripping things off of the healer when the “tank” can’t be bothered to do it, and grumbling to myself because I know if I was tanking I would have been able to hold aggro over the healer.

All of this aside, Ice has a story to tell as well. She started whispering it in my ear as soon as I specced her Blood. I hope I can get it all out of my head and onto paper in a way that makes sense and is entertaining.

More to come.

Ashwynn’s Big Day Out: Take Two

Some of you may have noticed that Ashwynn is no longer level 69. That’s right ladies and gents, the prodigal warlock has been sent out on a mission, to gain a level.

The interesting thing about all of this is that I actually enjoyed leveling her for that one level. I specced her out in a sexy Destruction build, gave her some very Warlock-ish BOAs, and went out and started some fires.

Ashwynn in her Sexy BOAs

Now, before you start asking why I bothered doing any of this, well, its rather an embarrassing story… You see, Ashwynn is my tailor, and I thought it fitting if she had a flying carpet. So I got the mats together and at great expense she made herself a lovely little flying carpet… that she couldn’t use. The tooltip on the carpet told me that I needed to be level 70 to use this item. So, you see, this was my reasoning behind leveling Ashwynn to 70.

There was only one thing that I forgot. Ashwynn already has flying skill, and there is a lesser flying carpet that I should have made for her first. I had crafted the epic flying carpet instead of the regular one. No chance I am wasting 5,000 gold to give her epic flying. Maybe if some day I have gold to throw away, but that isn’t the case right now.

So I wound up gathering the less considerable mats for the lesser flying carpet, and celebrated with Spellpower at Krasus Landing.

Carpet Surfing with Spellpower

Afterwards, I took her out for a little spin with Spellpower to visit the Baron in Stratholme. Old Rivendare just isn’t what he used to be. Yet, he still refuses to give up that steed.

Hello Baron

All in all, a fun little adventure for Ashwynn, and a lesson for me. Perhaps Ashwynn will not be stuck in Ironforge forever.