Monday October 29, 2007
The Garden of Proserpine (A. C. Swinburne)Yes, I'm posting something that isn't related to World of Warcraft. Amazing, isn't it?
I figured I might as well flesh out this weblog a bit more, and start doing things I'd been wanting to do with it for a while - namely, posting poetry I like.
Here's the first one.
Continue reading "The Garden of Proserpine (A. C. Swinburne)"
Guild go boom
Dear Guild Leader Self-absorbed idiot,
in what universe, exactly, is "oh noes, let's /gdisband" an appropriate reaction to the fact that the second-best raiding guild on the server has the same amount of bosses killed as this guild does, and therefore they might overtake the guild and kill Illidan first?
Continue reading "Guild go boom"
Saturday October 27, 2007
Same subject, different subject(Still related to World of Warcraft, before anybody starts worrying it's about real life.)
I really hope things sort themselves out.
(And yes, I know it's cryptic, but I'm not wanting to jinx it or talk overmuch about it before I actually know what the hell is going to happen.)
Friday October 26, 2007
About paladin buffsRight. For the paladins in the audience, I have a question...
I know about PallyPower, and I know what it does.
My question is: would it, or any similar mod that you know of, automatically rotate through the classes and the buffs that are assigned to it, so you can just bash one button repeatedly until everybody is buffed and the mod informs you of it?
Or does the trained monkey person sitting at the keyboard actually control which class they buff / rebuff by clicking a different button for each class?
Because I've honestly lost count of the amount of times I've been acting as a tank in a raid or group and clicked off Blessing of Salvation, right after it was buffed, only to have it immediately rebuffed. It's not random, it's not an accident, it almost always happens.
"Okay guys, rebuff."
*30-min BoSalv goes on*
*BoSalv gets clicked off*
*30-min BoSalv goes on again*
(I eventually just gave up and waited until we entered combat to click it off.)
If it's an addon that redoes it (semi-)automatically, fair enough. If it's not, I think I've just lost a little bit more of my faith in humanity - because you really must not be paying attention to what the hell is going on to chain-rebuff BoSalv on somebody who's been assigned as a tank.
Blizzard implements paid character name changesHuh. Yet another World of Warcraft change that I can say "I've been saying they should do this for ages!" to: paid character name changes. (Forum announcement / FAQ page.)
We're happy to announce that through the wonders of modern gnomish engineering, you are now able to change your characters' names. Finally, you can turn the moniker that seemed like a good idea at the time into something more befitting your true standing in World of Warcraft.
I don't have any issues with the names of my characters, myself (beyond a character whose name had to be changed due to server transfer and the original name being taken on the new server - but nothing I could do about that), but that's most likely because I actually think about what I'm going to name my characters when I create them. The multitude of people who just randomly typed whatever first came to mind, then found themselves several months later loathing the name but not wanting to delete the character and start over, should be happy now.
Perhaps they should've thought about what they were naming themselves before getting to the point where they were unwilling to restart the character, but hey. Call it a tax on stupidity.
Thursday October 25, 2007
Black Temple attunement!Tonight's raid in World of Warcraft was supposed to have been Black Temple. But since there weren't enough people of the right classes online at the appointed time for raid start, the officers decided to go first to Tempest Keep, then to Mount Hyjal, in order to attune some trial members (as well as some casual members) to Black Temple.
Tempest Keep was uneventful, and it went much better than the last time I went there, since I had more of a clue as to what was expected of me this time.
Kael'thas the rat bastard didn't drop the Thalassian Wildercloak, though. Damnit.
I was so hopeful... it's pretty much the cloak for Feral Druid DPS, especially after 2.3. Razor-Scale Battlecloak is pretty comparable, but it's from Morogrim, which means it's even more unlikely I'll ever see it drop (as the guild is even less inclined to go to SSC than to go to TK, for understandable reasons); nothing else really compares in terms of scaling. Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape is really shiny, and a definite upgrade over Capacitus' Cloak of Calibration, but it works out to less AP and less crit than Thalassian Wildercloak, especially when taking raid buffs into account.
I can't complain, though. Mount Hyjal was nice to me. Anetheron decided to spit out Don Alejandro's Money Belt, which is pretty much the belt (Belt of One-Hundred Deaths is a bit of an upgrade over it in 2.3, depending on how you value the new expertise stat, but it's from Lady Vashj); Kazrogal figured he'd help out and dropped Razorfury Mantle, which is also extremely nice (Shoulderpads of the Stranger is better, especially with the 2.3 changes, but it's from Hydross; I ultimately want Tier6 in the slot, but it'll take a while).
As my boyfriend put it, "Welcome to negative DKP". :P
Granted, the annoying side of it was I lost the Wastewalker two-piece set bonus - which, in addition to losing the +hit on the Wastewalker Shoulders, meant I had to burn somewhere around 500g regemming the rest of my items to remain at the +hit cap; still, it was something I always knew I'd have to do eventually. Might as well do it now, rather than pass on upgrades and cling to blue items just to save myself the gold.
And of course, I got the quest item from Rage Winterchill, which means I can now enter Black Temple. It's unlikely I'll do so before the next reset, as the guild already killed a good chunk of the bosses in there this week so what's left is the harder stuff I'm unlikely to be much use on, but - yay. :)
You are now Hated with Bloodscale Naga.Well, that went faster than I would've thought. Only around three hours to hit exalted with Sporeggar.
Granted, I was starting from almost revered (thanks to quite some time spent farming bogpeople for Primal Life), but still...
The repeatable quest gives 750 reputation per turn-in, and it took me roughly 5-6 minutes for each (including travel time between Sporeggar and the Naga). Three-shotting level 63-64 mobs for rep ftw.
MMO-Champion has a screenshot of the Tiny Spore Bat, and it is, as expected, ridiculously cute. Can we have the patch soon please?
(Also, dragon kite. I don't know where this will be from, but I do know I want one. My poor abused bank space...)
Tuesday October 23, 2007
On a completely different subject...And in other news: Rowling Says Dumbledore Is Gay.
Can't say I didn't see this coming.
Bracing for fandom explosion in 3... 2... 1...
Quick recap of the last few weeksYes, I know I don't post much. Shush!
First of all, a couple of images:
After missing the Tempest Keep attunement run (due to my boyfriend's computer croaking a few hours before it was scheduled, and me lending him my laptop so at least he could go), I finally got attuned to at least Mount Hyjal (and now just need to kill Rage Winterchill for Black Temple attunement).
Granted, I'd be happier if this hadn't come at the expense of progression for the guild (the only reason we went to Tempest Keep instead of them going to Black Temple to kill Reliquary of Souls was they were short on rogues for the evening)... eh.
Also, though I don't have a screenshot (I forgot to take one, for once, heh), I managed to get my hands on a Sinister Squashling a few days ago. And my boyfriend got his today, too. Whee. (We're both a bit obsessed with collecting vanity pets. Just a tiiiiiny bit obsessed. *cough*)
I do sympathize, though, with the guildie who wants The Horseman's Helm for his warrior alt and still hasn't seen it drop even once after several days and a couple hundred runs of the place.
Continue reading "Quick recap of the last few weeks"
Monday October 08, 2007
Heart of the Wild buff in 2.3Sometimes it pays to be subscribed to a RSS feed of Blue posts on the WoW forums, even though on bad days you have to sift through an endless sea of "stop posting nerf thread please" to get anything even semi-useful.
Patch 2.3 will bring a change to the Heart of the Wild talent for feral druids. The talent, previously giving a 20% increase to strength while in cat form, will give a 10% increase in attack power instead. (Source, for those interested.)
While at first this might seem like a nerf, doing the math (as pointed out in the linked thread) shows it's a buff. With my current DPS gear (which is by no means stellar, as I focused on my tanking gear first and foremost), the change nets me a gain of (slightly less than) 200AP.
The Blue post on the linked thread also mentions that 2.3 will finally correct the issue with feral druid weapons (short version - due to a flaw in calculating the additional feral attack power that gets added onto feral druid weapons, feral druids were consistently getting shorted on dps compared to melee dps using weapons of equivalent item level; long version with math, see this thread on the Elitist Jerks forum).
All in all - finally a good change, and hopefully a way for feral druid dps to match up to other dps classes a bit better.
Now to wrap my brain around the math and recalculate gear choices...
Sunday October 07, 2007
Fun with random droprateHow to make one's boyfriend whine about his luck: help him farm Primal Shadow.
The following conversation ensued...
Him: "Bah, lousy droprate... no motes so far."
Me: (jokingly) "Maybe it's your fault. You might be jinxing it. I have four motes on me that dropped before you got here."
Him: "Well, fine, I'm moving to the other place. Woudn't want to ruin your luck." (moves away)
Me: (immediately, upon the next kill) "Look, a mote!"
Him: "..."
Me: (a few minutes later, three more kills) "Another mote! Another two! ...look - a random blue!"
Him: "......"
Him: (45 minutes later or so) "So how many motes do you have?"
Me: "Four primals, five motes."
Him: "...I only have one primal and two motes. I hate my luck."
Me: "...hey, another three motes!"
Him: "If you say another word about more motes, I'll murder you."
Me: (kills some more) "Two more motes... another... ...hey, look - another random blue!"
Him: "......"
I don't know whether to be glad or not that we were done shortly after. With his luck inversely affecting mine, who knows, I might've ended up getting an epic world drop. :P (Another one, that is... got a Lola's Eve a couple of weeks ago from a random birdman in Skettis. Not that I've been able to sell it so far, but still...)
At least the plate chest is going to be useful for his paladin alt, assuming he manages to get it to that level. (Granted, I know next to nothing about gearing paladins, so I have no idea how good that thing is... but given that there are two classes in the game that wear plate, and warriors don't use spelldamage, it seems a pretty paladin item to me. :P) The mail belt I'll probably just try selling on the auction house, as it looks pretty nice, I lack a shaman alt, and - since it's mail - I doubt a paladin would find it useful. (Do feel free to tell me I'm wrong, though. As I mentioned, I have no clue about paladins. :P)
Tuesday October 02, 2007
Life, the universe and everythingWell, what do you know? I'm actually awake and coherent in the morning. Will wonders never cease? (Have had issues sleeping decently for the last handful of days... kept waking up, having nightmares, etc, and very little sleep - and fragmented at that - does not do nice things to one's brain.)
As for the guild situation... let me put it with an image:
And the funny thing is - this isn't even a Serpentshrine / Tempest Keep guild I've joined. They've cleared Mount Hyjal completely, and are on 6/9 bosses in Black Temple. Last night's run was basically a Karathress - Vashj "oh hi new trials, here, have attunements" run.
Here's hoping I (and my boyfriend, for that matter) pass trial. *crosses fingers*
(Boyfriend found the guild. If we pass trial, I don't think he'll ever let me forget that because of him I basically went from a guild that had cleared Karazhan and had a poke or two at Gruul to a Black Temple / Hyjal guild. Heh.)
