MORTARS!!!
as much as i sometimes hate the people i work with, i recognize that i have to eventually WORK WITH them some how.
about a year and a half or so ago, a couple of my then colleagues realized how much i like games, and sought to “impress” me with their gaming skillz0r, knowledge and wtfever-else. I say sought, because really, they probably know how to play Need For Speed Underground, and that was it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not terribly elitist when it comes to games - I suck at most of them. The thing is, they “sought” so as to make me feel like i “need” to look up to them. And “impressive” as they sound, they have never once cared to bring in their pcs for a real LAN showdown. There were big talks, even bigger descriptions “oh man, i bought a HUGE TANK AND I BAM BASH SLAM THE WHOLE MAP DOWN!!”
yeah ok.
With the current crew, there’s really only 1 left of those guys. Of them lot, I had say he talked the least shit, didn’t made him any better though.
Over the past 3 weeks, In an effort to “bond” better, I decided to try out gaming with them. I say try because 1) i haven’t played rts in ages; 2) I really didn’t like rts anyways; 3) i think paying to play games in such a wonderful technologically advance world is stupid. but, whatever you know? first time for everything.
I wouldn’t say I am hooked, but i tell ya, this is the smoothest (oh yes, despite the ups and downs) 3 weeks ever, and i have seen the “other” side of them. not only that though, i am having fun in games once again - and obviously learnt 2 very valuable lessons.
1) RTS is more fun as a group! (lol, i know, but i used to play them on my own haha)
2) Since I haven’t really played from about Red Alert 1’s era, I am just not used to 3d stuff. too used to small tiny tanks and trucks too. I have just been using foot soldiers - AND MORTARS ROCK!!
yeah, mortars pwn!! w00t!
(pictures taken from about.com. will upload mine soonish)
exhaustedWarhammer online - pass! (just a brief review)
Ever since Lineage II slowly withered away (aka people i know, and are respectable left or slowly left, and are replaced by douchebag), i have been hunting for something on a similar level of game play with a similar lot of people. WoW opened up a whole bunch of possibilities, coinciding with my increasing work and school load.
yet it wasn’t enough. Don’t ask me what I was looking for, I think i don’t even know it myself.
Age of Conan was a major and expensive (not to mention hugely irritating, lying, piece of shit) disappointment. And so, I was just a little wary when Warhammer’s date of release was announced. I didn’t purchase a copy for myself, but Waife did. And i took his copy and have been banging corners into it to find if i could possibly find what i was looking for.
Current I am only level 5, so please take into consideration when you are reading this. I haven’t gotten the chance to experience much of the game, and I am pretty sure it still has plenty to offer.
First off, let me just say this - for a product only this recently launched, it has been pretty smooth sailing. there were the usual “launch bugs” of sudden, unexpected game client crashes, not to mention some slight graphic bugs and “unknown commands”. The UI itself can be severely unresponsive: i am still waiting for my profanity filter to move its ass and allow me to read what Wrekked’s been trying to call me all week.
Beyond all those minor bugs though, the gameplay has been nothing short of awesome. Taking lessons from WoW (as most games nowadays seems to be doing), they have seperated servers into “core” (pve) and RvR (which is essentially open pvp). Like WoW, they have some races forming alliances with each other, the “Order” and the “Destruction” - and they fight each other. It’s pretty much open pvp zones through out if RvR is your chosen server.
the slightly different arc in all these is that races are paired against each other right from the start. So, Greenskins vs Dwarfs, Dark elves vs High Elves, Empire vs Chaos. as part of your “training” (or better yet, “story line”), every “chapter” of your life involves pvp-ing with the npcs of your paired opposing faction. There are also optional quests involving going into battleground-like (or arenas for L2 people) pvp areas.
From a healer’s perspective, this game is definitely alot more… coordination required. Every race has got their own healers. Most of the healer classes require damage output before one can throw up a heal (from what I have understood so far), not too dissimilar to building up rage before one can use a skill. Rune priests and something else (can’t remember which one) seems to be the only 2 classes that has been spared that problem.
Still, it is not just a plain “throw up a heal, then sit and disappear into background” kind of role anymore.
What is also interesting (and i am speaking from a WoW gamer’s viewpoint), is that they seem to have taken many of the add-ons WoW gamers, with some twists, used as good inputs into the game. For example, there’s quest helps, but not to the point where you are just blindly walking into the zone and picking up quests/quest items/quest npcs. There are links all over the place to help guide you smoothly into the game.
the guild system is interesting too. you can “gain xp” for the guild, which opens up things like guild calendar (ahem, add-on, ahem) that are useful to the development of the guild.
The ui itself has been pretty intuitive and ready for “customisation” - albeit it’s pretty bugged right now and hard to make things work. The basic layout is good enough though, and the graphics are smooth enough, and big enough, for basic, normal usage.
From what I can see and guess, they toned down the graphics so everyone can join in and play regardless of pc systems (to a degree i guess). Even then, it’s not overly shoddy, and is on a slightly better… standard than WoW, not quite L2 yet though, and definitely no where near the crazy graphic requirements of Age of Conan.
The only complaints I have at the moment is how ugly their elves are. Their elves looks no where near graceful, somewhat hawkish and gawky is more like it. The female elves looks no different from the male, some of the faces are quite.. man-ish. The best of all was, thankfully, similar to angelina jolie (dark elves), albeit the worst of all looks like a smashed up asian face, also from the dark elves.
Levelling wise, it’s not as casual friendly as WoW, even with the help of rested xp, an idea from WoW i guess, and huge amount of quests, it is not as quick to get from, say, level 1-10. In wow, i can probably accomplish 1-20 in about 2-4 hours. The levelling time probably isn’t too far from how Lineage 2 was, but it’s not as much of a grind, considering the quests and story line each has to fulfill.
Any questions? i will try and answer them ^^
what?!?!
A few months ago, I bought Age of Conan. From the huge amounts of hiccups both Waife and I had with the company even prior to the launch, we should have realised it wasn’t going to gel between us and the company.
Both of us had pre-order codes, but only I got my items. Despite going back to EB Games to grab more codes in exchange of the “not working” ones, by the third time we went over to EB, they were less than willing to help. Which is very understandable.
But emails to Funcom goes ignored, there were no help, no suggestions beyond “go ingame and type /somefuck” - which by the way was part of the automated reply previously. And i was getting terribly bored because of the stupidity behind the gameplay.
So we both quit.
Except I forgot to cancel the monthly subscription, until today when i saw it lighting up in my netbanking again. I can’t ask funcom to refund my own stupidity, so I went to try and cancel my own subscription.
Except, there doesn’t seem to be anything to cancel.
MY ACCOUNT WAS ALREADY FROZEN FROM NON-PAYMENT.
I am annoyed, because if they had already “frozen” the account from non-payment, they shouldn’t be charging me for it. There were also no communication from them, unlike L2 and WoW to say the subscription has ended. I know, it’s not like I was going to play it anyways, and it was my fault that I have forgotten….
But to take my money and still freeze my account?
What the hell is that about?
annoyedpuggin’ it
i did something stupid 2 weeks ago, and basically un-gemmed myself so i can have more stamina for the najentus fight. Then my freshly minted 70 kinda trounced my main’s +heals, so i went ahead and re-gemmed her properly…. basically getting my common sense back. Don’t ask why, i was having a self-conscious week.Regemming, after self-buffs and buffs from pally, i got:
it’s still a work in progress, and i definitely should have spent the badges on something else - but whatever….
I am pretty happy where i am at the moment though. Sans immense raiding, i would say i have done a pretty good job “casual-crafting” on my main. i still remembered being told somewhere at 69, that >2000 healing was near impossible to get. On the ally side, i have seen so many >2000 healing healers with less raid experience than me that i have been somewhat ashamed of BE-Ani. So to see her over 2000 heals.. *tear*
~Interlude~
Got my flying mount on DR-Ani!!!
/interlude
With all that said and done though, i will admit that running an alt motivated me to pug again - simply because i have to. my hours for availability and all just clash too much with everything else. plus, my ally guild contain this douche bag (or my INSPIRATION if you want to put it nicely) who insisted i only got guilded on my main because i was a chick.
On to the main topic though: Pugs.
Oh the so hated word. They suck, 70% of the time. The number of times i have wiped on trash mobs before I’ve even seen the second boss is COUNTLESS. and i am not even talking about raids. So, here’s my pet peeves with regards to pugs, especially encountered over the last 2 weeks:
- Dissing others’ gears - just because you have enough badges to buy out the vendor to cover your gear, doesn’t mean that everyone else is a scrub. as a tank, seriously, you can’t even keep aggro. you don’t understand why you shouldn’t be typing epic essays while building up threat. You don’t know how to watch healer’s mana, or that fear ward has a 3 minute cool down.
So in reality, your gear doesn’t quite suit your IQ and EQ levels. Keep yourself in the closet, get some REAL gears and stfu because i sure as hell don’t like to read your condescending yet stupid commands like “FEAR WARD ME!!!” 1.5 minutes after i have already cast it on you.
and seriously? that’s also the first time i’ve heard that no one needs salvation.
- incessant, unnecessary banter - Beyond condescending remarks to everyone else in the party though, i just hate too much un-necessary typing. it’s good to socialize, don’t get me wrong - but do you have to…
“HI VICTOR!! HOW’S YOUR MUM!??!!”
“omg, victor, did you know…”
“U.U so my girlfriend won’t have sex with me, what should i do?”
omg, just…wow. /wrist ok? 1 hour worth of it? seriously, use vent. use the phone - STOP TYPING DUMB SAKDJASDAKJDHSA…as,dsad.
- Lack of courtesy - Please, ffs, tell people when you intend to mine something in the instance. that’s what /roll is for, so it’s a fair go for anyone who wants something, and this include mines. Don’t simply assume that just coz there’s an OMGWTFBBQ-MINE!!! it’s all yours. ask, roll and then go for it.
oh, and don’t start the “a woman’s place is in the kitchen” conversation. The winner of that argument will always be me, especially since i WILL stop healing and leave right there and then. don’t. start.
- Ditching your group, then QQ-ing that they are continuing without you - If you’re the one who started a group, don’t be the first to leave because something didn’t go right. everyone’s saved to the raid/instance once you have done the first boss. Worse thing is QQ-ing that we’re continuing after you left - YOU LEFT! YOU LEFT US! you really have no right to QQ to anyone in the party, emotionally threatening your GF so she would stop playing…
the fact is, kiddo, with my 1.6k +heals, i still pwned your 2.2k +heals, and managed to keep tank up for dragonhawk. something wrong there? i think so.
- Lack of awareness - There’s some birds there. There’s some ROCKS dropping on your head. lasjdlkajs MOVE IT!!!!!! i can heal you, oh sure. But, in healing you for something as easily cured as you moving yourself, i have wasted that amount of mana + time that i could have used better saving someone else.
And, please DON’T aggro Gruul while we are trying to med. i mean, when we are medding, it means we are not ready. WTF ARE YOU INFRONT OF GRUUL!??! This also apply to tanks, please, wait for me to med up so i actually have some mana to heal you. i mean, if i am sitting down, if it’s the last boss, it means i need to med, not because i am a lazy pixel - or that i enjoy watching my priest sit and do nothing.
- Inability to gauge your REAL abilities - hey, i love to 10/20/30 pull too. In Lineage 2, i do big pull runs all the time. But unlike l2, i can’t heal at the speed of lightning. the “flash heal” ain’t all that flashy and mana efficient. So, while i appreciate your enthusiasm, mage/lock/tank, since you’ve already wiped once on that particular pull, can you stop doing that 5 times in a row? it’s been proven by the 3rd time that you suck already.
- Short notice? - Ok, so we all know that in heroics and raids, once you’ve killed the first boss, anyone that steps in gets auto-saved. if you’re going to leave, at least SAY SOMETHING before someone new got invited AND summoned inside the instance. Don’t do it AFTER!!!!
phew, long list of rant, sorry.
All that said and done though, i would say i am not perfect myself. I do strive and works towards being the best i could. Ashamed of it as i was, i would say i was feeling somewhat happy i ditched a douchebag Protardin last night for being obnoxious to others, and trying to teach me how to play my class even though he can’t tell one cool down from another - mid him trying to fight a mob.
Add that to a failed Gruul’s pug today, i just felt a need to get it out of my system.
Sense of achievement today? : Healing a group through Dragonhawk@ZA today with my freshly minted +1600 heals Draenei priest. For all the +2200 heals healadin insist that i got accepted into guilds only because of my gender, i felt incredibly satisfied to prove i have got skills today - to myself if nothing else. 
..|..
i beat blizzard
The Alliance Anivyl finally hit 70 (after holidays, work, studying zomg lotsa breaks and stupid pugs) about 10 minutes before server went down. additional 5 minutes to get my ass in gear and run for my life to get my skills - didn’t get those booked skills yet though.
And here’s the original Horde Anivyl
in the midst of doing Akama… it’s going to be a long way up again! This time, i took a totally different approach in levelling. Shadow spec did made it a whole bunch easier, and faster - but didn’t make the transition to being holy that much easier for me. In retrospect though, since i levelled the original Holy all the way, it did made the transition less painful than it would for some of the people i knew.
And now, i can play with 2 priests, on 2 totally different sides and, i believe, adequate time between raids that i can switch from one into the other. God i am so pumped for holidays - few more days to go ^_^
Will add picts of Sydney and all shortly…. plus!! a new t-shirt i bought
Dear Wade
One of my ex employees is also an assistant manager at one of the games shops we have here. He told me that pre-orders have started, and blah blah, and that’s how i got in.
At the moment, there’s no trial keys to be given out yet. JB hifi only ordered 6 collector’s edition, and eb games were sold out a month before early access (so april 14th?) It’s only a slight loss anyways 
and gives me bragging rights.
I just restarted my lineage 2 account so that i can take screenshots. you told me server transferr is only $25 bux, but it’s what… 45. hell no. 
(then again if we can split costs!!!!)
we need to go out for dinner again. I want to do some italian food, what you think?
Age of Conan (picture heavy)
No, I haven’t quit wow. Signed up to raid today but there wasn’t enough people. But here’s what i got out of Age of Conan, other than the bewbs of course. I bought the Collector’s edition, so here’s the loot:
and the boobs that came in the art book!
The only gripes i have with the whole loot thing were (being all bitchy and nit-pickety):
- The pack I had got were poorly “taped” together. The 4 stickers you see on the front of the box? that was all that was holding the box and packaging together. As such, the chick that brought it to me dropped everything on the floor. Glad that there was nothing breakable or else that would have happened. She did nick the box on the side though, so now there’s a huge white patch there.
- the art book. This game cost me $100 for the collector’s edition. Most games i had ever bought, at “collector’s edition” stage had nice artbooks with a minimum of a thick, firm cover at least, and the average is definitely a hardcover.
The cover of this art book? a real poor thin copy paper. Crumples at the slightest rub. ~.~ *sulks*
The game itself:
Character Creation:
The scene is set at the back of a ship, with what seems like slaves rowing it. the story line is pretty much (from the bare bits that i can gather here and there) you got pushed into slavery, and was on a ship to Tortage to be enslaved. Right after character creation, you got shipwrecked and lost your memories. All of which sounds like a great story line ^_^
But, the actual character creation is pretty fun. You can alter many facets of your character, including the BOOBS and the ASS. which they nicely named posterior and uh… boobs? I did alter her height to reflect my rl height (somewhere around 5 foot) and tattooed her as well. Yeah, i like personalising my characters just a little bit 
Initially, i hung out her tits just a little. unfortunately, during the multiple cut scenes that were the quests and so on, i realise that her tit graphics cut her arms way too much. i was uncomfortable with that, so i deleted her and started again.
Graphics wise, i had say they are beautiful in their own way. It seems to use alot of resources though, and at medium, sometimes it chugs on my lappy. granted, it’s not the best of graphics card in the first place, but i wish i can see more gorgeous graphics without so much as having my graphics card chuck a spazzo at me. Lineage 2 was great, and still is, without needing all these new spiffy graphics card, turned on full.
regardless, graphics are great. Fact that you can make the arse and tits bigger makes it all the more better. Wait, now i do qualify for nsfw hahaha….
And, the reason why it’s ma15 is also because the graphics do get gory. right now, i have seen quite a few “fatality” involved broken bottles and what not… they aren’t pretty, but damn they are graphically exciting to look at.
Gameplay:
I have only played like, 11 levels worth of this game. So take all this with a pinch of salt ya.
So, let’s start with the default UI. As you can see, the action bars are pretty chunky. The chat box is in an awkward spot, and i really hate those on screen messages as well as the colour of all the chat/onscreen messages fonts - mostly because they are barely readable. Adding people to group can be confusing at the start, and adding friends is equally as confusing.
Basically you have to go into this page to look for people of a certain level, click their name and choose to add them in group or friend’s list. It’s finding the page to do so and understanding it right off the bat that would take some time.
There’s a… tutorial manual of some sort in game that pulls up to the left side of your screen when you start. Whilst helpful, it’s positioning, font size and wealth of information is just a little too much for me. personally… i turned it off as it’s more intrusive than helpful at some point.
Digging around the int3rw3b though, and through the game folders, i came to realise the ui is quite customisable. There’s a folder for customised UI, and there’s at least 3 good and working UI’s out there for AoC. One’s WerikUI, the other is MirageUI and finally there’s the BalMaethorUI.
Looking at the forums though, it seems Funcom themselves are quite unsure of whether Customised UI’s should be allowed or not. So for now, perhaps the safest thing is to look for UI’s that just allows you to customise the size and look of action bars and chat boxes. On a personal note, i would rather go through the hassle of un-customised UI until i am comfortable with the game, just to be uber familiar with everything, heh.
Skills and attributes:
I think it was dungeons and dragons that started this, but i could be wrong. once upon a time, i played games that required people to change their attributes accordingly. some were kind enough that when you hit a certain level, you can re-distribute your attribute points. this can make one wizard quite different from the other, for example, when it comes to mana regeneration and etc etc.
AoC added that on top of the “talents” distribution method that WoW had. The attributes appears to be changeable every level, and talents are available only after level 10. I have been trying to figure out which way i should go so i am essentially a healing class but… it’s not easy. it seems like they have made healers combatants as well as healers - sounds like a dangerous in between to me but we will see. Here’s a look at our available “feats” as they call it.
What i love the most is the lack of need to go to a trainer (or perhaps i do, but i never realised/found it) - every time i ding the right levels, i gain new skills! how awesome is that!
initial quests (until level 20) has 2 sides to it. there’s the multi-player side, where there’s also a chance of getting ganked since its open pvp, and there’s the single player mode in the dark.
anyways, here’s the end of my thoughts on AoC for now. kinda abrupt, but unless i have played this game for longer, it wouldn’t be a fair call on anything else i say.
woah
Age of conan in my hands, will take picts for it later.
All i can think of is nekkid boobs and mammoth mounts.
and wtf 621 megs patch from outta the blue - 2 hours on work connection.
meanwhile, i got a new pair of earrings from etsy.com - wildheather - and they are so gorgeous. everyone’s complimenting them so you guys should buy one too ($3 goes to breast cancer foundation). it’s the one on the right:
aight, back to reading and updating AoC
backward pictures says a thousand words
Ok, so i missed Azgalor screenshots because i was busy eating my cat, but here’s the WWS. Not raiding for 2 months resulted in shitty gears compared to the rest…. and just a little retardation in reaction hahaha. my apologies for the deaths that maybe because of me hahaha… BUT I SURVIVED AZGALOR!!!!! had shit all mp left, and all cooldowns were down, but I SURVIVED!
damn it feels good to raid.
and Hyjal feels alot like Black Morass, just on a larger scale. So all in all, i think i just found a favourite raid instance *rubs weapon*
n00b’s guide to beginner’s raiding
before i start, can i just happily announce that for May’s batch of happy gems, consortium has finally decided that after this long at revered, they will reward me with 2 blue gems finally?
Damn stingy bastards. Oh, and yay to more gaming posts (height of stress signs lmao)
In the days that followed my last “noob’s guide“, i have been playing on my alliance character and therefore somewhat qualified to join a guild with M, my mate on that server. There i met a fresh 70 warlock, who had rl friends who plays the game but none of them, said warlock included, were ever decked in purples, much less raid gears. None of them have seen raids either, from what i have gathered. So, this is some love to the said warlock.
Introduction
Firstly, read the original noob’s guide. This is because there’s a lot of helpful hints in there as to why some guildies might have seemed rude to you when you asked to tag along in TK. I might repeat myself here anyways, but do start from there.
Now, first of all, let it be understood that raids are very different from instances for various reasons. Some of them are common sense to people who have played MMOs for most of their lives, but for the sake of this post, do understand that not many people might have played MMOs before WoW. The way WoW has been, it’s popularity has often been because it was easily accessible and understood by even people who has never gamed before - and does not take that much time or effort to get started.
Most of the “hardcore” stuff, and fun stuff, starts at 70. Raids are differentiated and ranked according to the Tier tokens that they drop. Furthering the complications, mobs and their AI also gets more difficult/complicated according to the loot that they drop (common sense, but again…). With that in mind, this is how raids should be attended according to the order of difficulty/no. of people in terms of progressing, bearing in mind that most people progress from those raids once they have loots for most of the core people (healers and tanks) from the previous tier.
- Karazhan - 10 man
- Gruul’s Lair / Magtheridon - 25 men
- Serpent Shrine Caverns / Tempest Keep - 25 men
- ZA - 10 men (Ok, i lied. Za is kinda in between 2) and 3) because of the mix of gear levels in there)
- Black Temple/ Mount Hyjal - 25 men
- Sunwell - 25 men
Basic Expectations
So, with that progression in mind, let’s start with some of the basics that i have mentioned in the original noob guide:
- You have to be geared enough for the raids. There are raid minimums for every single tier, when unfuilfilled, this can cause incredible lack of dps/heals/protection. While alot of guilds have got Karazhan down pat to the point of purely farming Karazhan (and getting annoyed if people screw up lol), this doesn’t ignore the fact that Karazhan is still an entry-level Raid. Most new guilds would start there, unless they are a geared split from another guild.This means that new Characters intending to gear up for progressive raids (or basically get somewhere in progressive raids) should start at Karazhan as well.
- With the necessary gears in mind, it should be noted that one shouldn’t try and skip one tier raid over another. Of course you can try, play with trash mobs, even mess around with the bosses of Sunwell (for example) if you get there. In all reality though, unless you are the only shitty geared person, perhaps you should just leave the high end stuff for later. You know, strats and dps works better when you are not busy kissing the floor.
- Always, always, always read up on Boss Strats. even if you’re going there as an assigned teabagger, it would be wise not to be a fried teabagger - who wipes the raid on, say, Aran.
- Find out the raid sign up procedures, and go sign up. This cuts down the need to bug people to invite you to raid if they have already got a raid going… and you aren’t invited. It also makes it fairer (if the guild works right) for everyone since you have already signed up and they can’t say “you didn’t sign up, sorry, join the next page of wait list.
- Find out about loot policies, wait list policies and abide by them. please don’t fucking whine, spam guild chat with incessant “but i am a newbie…” or “i have waited for an hour, shouldn’t i get a chance” bullshit. if you’re late, if you’re a newbie, sit in your corner, listen to instructions and ask if you can have an item POLITELY if it’s suitable for you.
Raid Minimums
All that, before you even enter Karazhan. But wait, there’s more. Because this is dedicated to a fresh 70, here’s some idea of raid minimums:
(yeah i know, i suck at putting tables up in WordPress, and i am too lazy to upload a text file for you to download)
these are just MINIMUMS. They aren’t recommended and because of the availability of many good gears out there, there would be some expectations. each guild differs in terms of raid minimums, so do check with your guild at the end of the day.
Narrowing that down to specific classes though, there are some things that should be noted:
As far as clothies go, if this is your first character, you should first and foremost be a tailor. Dedicate some time into levelling it up. While you are levelling up, there’s more than adequate amount of humanoid-type mobs that you would be killing (and i know this because i am BOTH a tailor and first aid person largely from my own mats) that would produce your cloths for your tailoring. The only other reason why you should be lagging behind in terms of being a tailor is the difficulty in obtaining, say, rugged leather.
If you are rushing through your levels, then at least bank your cloths. This is vital when AH might prove to be just abit lacking. If you need a guide to Power levelling your tailoring, here’s a link - Click.
The importance behind being a tailoring clothy is because at the end of your tailoring levels, you can make your own epic armour. They even come with sockets! These choices of armour can give you the running headstart you need to meet those raiding requirements. They are a pain in the arse to make, and the cloths are currently at 3.5 days cooldown per 2 cloths (when you spec into a particular cloth). However, the trouble of getting them dumbs down the need to run heroics a gazillion time in the hope of some all right gear for raids.
Gearing up for Karazhan:
And here’s some clothy gear suggestions i guess:
- Warlock: Frozen Shadoweave Set (from Tailoring)
- Progresses into: Tier 4 Voidheart set
- Mages: Frost starts with Frozen Shadoweave, and Fire & Arcane Mages starts with SpellFire
- Progresses into: Tier 4 Aldor Regalia (choice of name o.o)
- Priests: Holy starts with Primal Mooncloth Set, Shadow with Frozen Shadoweave
On a personal note, i have never found the Tier 4 set bonuses to be that much better than Primal mooncloth enough for me to care to upgrade it to Tier 4. With that in mind, and the right gemmings, i currently stand at 1.9k +healing un-buffed, i think, obviously with some Tier 5 trinkets and stuff here and there (and before anyone starts, I haven’t raid or done anything badge related in about 2 months, so stuff your fat ass elsewhere).
With helm and leggings, with some luck, you can get drops off Botanica/Shattered Halls instances a couple of recipes that forms the Spellstrike set. These, while a bitch to obtain (if not, go badger some lover to make it for you), aids in the spell crit and spell hit capping for caster dps. For healers, Whitemend is your best friend.
Anything that you are missing (bracers, gloves, shoes) go BG some and get some welfare epics. The tip for getting gears, with regards to drops, is the more the stats (+int, +stam, +spell crit, +spell dmg), the better it would be for you. So if a trinket comes along with like 1 stat, as compared to say another one that has 2, the one with 2 wins hands down (unless it’s like, +1 stam, +2 spell dmg).
Enchants
So now, you should have a 5/5 set bonus on top of the sets, and a 2/2 for your head and legs, and they are epics that will last you for at least a month. It’s time to bling them since you had be wearing them for that long. Pants wise, if you are scryer and exalted with them, Runic Spell thread works for DPS-ers, whilst aldors exalted gives Golden Spell Thread for healers. If you are not related to either of them, just grab a friend and have them make what you need. It works regardless of your loyalties.
Aldor’s Shoulder enchants comes with more Spell damage, but less spell crit compared to Scryers. On a personal level, since i haven’t played caster dps in raid formats, i can’t tell which is more important. But, in my own judgement, i had say spell damage is probably more important due to the increment of consistent of damage over time as compared to reliance of a chanced crit.
Healers would be some what torn at this i guess. Scryers offer 22 +healing (at exalted) but with 6mp5, whils Aldors offer a flat 29 +healing. Mp5s are really sweet for long ass raids though, so it’s not entirely negligible and if you have shitty side gears (trinkets, bracers), that’s something to be taken into consideration.
Head enchants: Glyph of Power for Casters (revered with shatt), Glyph of Renewal for Healers (revered with Honor Hold/Thrallmar).
the rest of the enchants for your gears, use your head. Unless you’re an enchanter levelling up your skills, i highly doubt you need dodge rating as a caster.
Gemming
Can i just point out, being a jewelcrafter is a PAIN IN THE ASS? ok, QQ completed.
This is really a no-brainer, but in order of what’s important as a dps-er, starting with cheap gems:
- Veiled Flame Spessarite
- Runed Blood Garnet
- Gleaming Golden Draenite
- Veiled Noble Topaz
- Runed Living Ruby
- Great Dawnstone
Gleaming Golden Draenite and Great dawnstone should be used when you are just starting out and trying to get hit capped.
Healers, You should use this in accordance to what you think is currently needed. If your gears make up for your mana regeneration, then go for more +heals and so on.
Mods
Ahh, my favourite topic. To start with, you do need mods for raiding. If not for some basic knowledge of where you stand in raids, at least whether the mob is about to start whaling on you next. Suggested required mods:
SWStats - Dmg meters
Omen - Threat meters
OrA2 - At least to see who you are going to assist off…
Bosskiller - more useful if you have read up strats…
Some Loose ends
do not forget your consumables. Wizard oil/Brilliant mana oil for Weapon rubbing, Food for spell dmg/Healing/mana regen and of course, FLASKS. The more output you have, the higher chance of success, the less gold spent on repairs and the better you look (as a genuine raider) to others.
Here’s also the obligatory links to guides for Warlocks: Nihilium Warlock Guide and Elitist Jerk’s Warlock PVE guide (which i pretty much took most of the gemmings ideas from!)
Meanwhile, while you are gearing up, don’t forget to pug it, because that’s where you learn your skills from!
And that’s it!
p.s i need a life.
Going MoD Crazy
So, despite the fact that i can hardly raid anymore, if at all, i am constantly on the look out on improving my mods for raids. Oh, i know, Mods don’t make me a good raider, skills does. I just like having things at the ease of my fingers. As long as it’s quick and easy, it means i have a higher chance at being on top of my game.
WoW’s allowance for gamers to enhance their UI has allowed alot of wonderful things for avid gamers/fanboys. There’s been people working behind alot of mods, to make others’ gaming experiences better, simplified or just aesthetically pleasing. Some of the mods are updated so much, i wondered if the authors themselves have a life outside of it all - or perhaps they are just in love with coding.
At any rate, I am pretty sure most people who plays wow already knows all that information, so here’s what i have done in the past week:
- I love pitbull, i just couldn’t find the ability to anchor the party frame to the top of my screen for some reason (or maybe i was stupid). Cue some QQ, changed to Xperl, and then more QQ. A quick google and some patches later (perhaps it was just me not realising it earlier anyways) I found the way to hang it up top, AND have it all turned off while raiding.go me!
- I love my decursive, really. I just don’t like not knowing WHO was being cured, and at a quick glance, everything was just… not specific enough, if you know what I mean. I also happen to love a thousand other Raid UI’s (ok, so it’s just because i like to see little fucking pink boxes, go fuck yourselves <3 ). After some intensive reading, since i suck at learning to do things on the fly without distracting myself, i got Clique and Grid working in the way i kinda want to. so now, it’s a hell lot more key-binding than what i am used to. For the next week or 2, i am just going to adjust myself to it slowly, making full use of BGs hehehe…
- Got ElkBuffBars. Just felt like seeing how my buffs goes, not that i don’t actually know it. It does clean up the rest of the ui (buffs hanging from portraits etc) though
still a work in progress, regardless. For some reason, after a while, i just can’t seem to be happy with how my ui looks. hahaha.
Characters wise, I have been taking breaks from my main horde character. There’s nothing wrong with her, but other than farming gold like a retard, i really don’t see the character going anywhere until i have a proper school break/work break or something along those lines. raid time clashes with just about everything: work, school and assignments. PVP got boring after the 3rd week so i started…. levelling my alliance character.
in 2-3 weeks (since i got new lappy), i went from lvl 27 to… lvl 61 hahaha. So here’s Evil Ani for you (because alliance are so full of themselves hahaha). i may eventually level the rest of my alts, all to 60, just for kicks and laughs, because i CAN. There’s people who are always whining about how hard it is to level, even with the current boost. I can understand if they have never play any other games before and simply assumed that it is HARD and a bother.
But having played lineage 2 for almost 4 years, i have come to realise what’s real hard and painful. and i do love love love lineage 2, so don’t get me wrong. Not to mention the small time frame i have spent in other mmos (silkroad, rose online comes to mind) that are an ASS to level in. So WoW really isn’t hard people, and if it is, let’s just say at least you’re getting your money’s worth and not reaching end game in 2 weeks.
I would like to end this post with a little in-game drama ^_^ as if rl drama isn’t “days of our lives” enough.
My friend M joined this guild with a mate of his, as he got abandoned on the server by his other rl friends and (ahem) me - since you know, i actually HAVE a functioning main. He contributed quite abit into it along with his ugly gnome friend - set up a site for forums, tried pushing people into being more active for the sake of the guild’s raids and booted those who were obviously for nothing but “look i have a guild, therefore i must be something”.
On a side note, i must say, really. Why do people apply to raiding guilds with absolutely no intention of fucking raiding? And, furthermore, there are lots of information on the forums that was made for that guild in particular - raiding strats, recommended class/talent builds, raid dates and locations - why don’t people make full use of those before logging on and asking stupid shit like, “oh, what bosses/raids are we doing tonight?” *twitch*
At any rate, the officers of the guild set a deadline for the GM: whip the guild into shape by May 14th, get into ssc/tk or we are all gone. The officers are also… the core and most reliable raiders of the lots. This include M. They were all tired of the inactivity, the GM trying to be nice to everyone (”stop booting people! we are getting smaller!” but, if they aren’t raiding, you guys weren’t big anyways), and just running KZ like there’s no tomorrow - and then wiping on KZ trash.
May 14th loomed in his face, and the GM realised it’s never going to happen, and begged the officers to please reconsider their actions - no go. So, the GM DITCHED THE GUILD. He ditched it into M’s hands, took 900g from the guild bank and bailed to join his “rl friends”.
Fair enough, M was fairly surprised though. GM still had some “friends” that he pretty much left in the guild without bringing them with him to his more active raiding guild. Regardless, M set about trying to see what he can do with the remains of the guild. It all depends on 2 meetings with the officers and the members, and then he’s booting more people.
Thankfully, a very useless retarded pally left before i could gouge his eyes out.
The guild though, pretty much showed no promise of improvement. For a just-in-case scenario, and because what was left in the guild bank was pretty much all that had been contributed by M and his friend, M locked up the guild bank, turn off viewing priviledges from everyone and then got everyone into an active raiding guild.
Except for Ex-GM’s rl friends. Already, neither of them were active raiders to start with. There were minute contributions from either of them, if at all. The only major one came from Ex-GM, which was made a moot point when he took out that 900g. When M turned off viewing priviledges, Ath, one of the GM’s RL friends, started QQ-ing and insisted on knowing what’s inside the guild bank and felt like he was being singled out.
When the move between guilds happened, and Ath was left behind, both him and Ex-GM started QQ-ing even more, and then insisted on having both the guild AND the guild bank back, complete with all the gold and perhaps “a stash of Void Crystals would be nice”. M was having none of it, and told them to go to hell. They can’t just come back in after ripping the guild off, and leaving people behind to sink, and still expected some “rewards” for nil contribution.
Ath started harassing and stalking M, complete with threats of banning and what not.
Ok, so here’s the thing darling. It’s hard to start over again, that’s for sure. but it’s not impossible. and you know what? M is lineage 2 trained, WoW is easy mode. So, even if by your lies he does get banned, damn it be fun to start him over again.
- The End -
New mini patch in WoW
- People with shitty personal ratings will be earning their own side of arena points: less stupids getting Arena gears quick.
- Jewelcrafting: Brilliant glass no longer requires a forge: wewt!!!! i don’t have to find a forge now to click it (so ok, i actually have to click them on a daily basis now) PLUS there’s a chance to get epix gem off them yay
- Things with 24 hours cool down, is now 20, and 4 days cool down are only 3.5. I don’t know if i should cheer at this, or wonder wtf bother with 4 hours/0.5 days. oh wells.
Oh dear Games…
I have pre-ordered Age of Conan, another MMO that looks pretty promising, albeit just a little gory. Because i pre-ordered the collector’s edition, it was meant to arrive with a beta key from EB Games. Now, if not for my wonderful friend, i wouldn’t have gotten the beta key as when i first pre-ordered it, it wasn’t available in stores yet.
The stupid part is, their idea of a beta for pre-orders is a STINGY one. Not only do you have to pay $5 to download the game from them (like hello, it’s $150 for the game itself, you stingy bastards), it’s a grand 16 GIGABYTES. 16 fucking gigs. you couldn’t even produce some cheap as dvd to your pre-orders.
even without net cap, wtf, 16 gigs is going to be a tonne of hours to download. And since we do have net cap, there’s no way i can download it.
WAY TO GO FUNCOM. *twitch*
Quiet Tuesday
- I am waiting for Wii Fit to be on sale. According to my sources, they are already in stores, just need the go ahead from Nintendo to sell them. $149.50 with the Wii Fit board, GO GET ONE WADGE!
- Wolfenstein 3d turned 16 yesterday, according to Kotaku. OMG how the games have changed ever since! i remembered playing that game, albeit i can’t remember if i actually owned it on a floppy disk or played it off a cousin’s comp - but it was great.
Picture was ripped off Kotaku, but for anyone who’s played that game back then, remember how cool it was that as the guy’s health went down, his portrait got bloodier and more painful? Sometimes, i had run around just getting myself killed to see that portrat become pained and bloody. goddamn.
Beyond games, essays were due, and i think i ran myself tired trying to get them all done and still manage work at the same time. The only thing that has been keeping me going is “NOT LONG NOW SUCKERS!!!” comment running through my head.
a noob’s guide to being an effective progression gamer in WoW
Be forewarned, this is a gaming related post, and particularly to do with WoW. 
Dear friends and fellow gamers,
This is written because i am tired of logging into games to spend the first hour or so being a guild’s or a person’s personal PR manager or something along that line. Like everyone else, we pay 15usd a month to enjoy a game, not to be someone else’s bitch. Bear in mind this is written with about 5 years worth of gaming experiences under my belt, most of which belongs to being part of active guilds/clans and friends with many others enemy guilds/clans. And while I have only played WoW for the last year, this is what i have done to be able to justify what i am about to say next:
- I was started off with about 100g by a friend, who walked me through the first 30 mins worth of my WoW life. Thereafter, i was pretty much on my own. I found Thottbot by googling, and while i love WoWhead now, i will still attribute a large part of my learning process to Thottbot and WoWwiki. There were few questions, unless i wasn’t clear about something.
- With WoWwiki, and some other forums/blogsites that google turned up, i planned my gears ahead. I wasn’t always right, but it sure as hell made sure i learn real quick what’s right and what’s wrong.
- I pugged alot. and by alot, i meant to the point where i was honorary guild member to some guilds, i was exalted with Shattrath and revered with others, and done at least 180 hours worth of wiping Karazhan and Gruul. This, unfortunately, is nothing compared to what alot of other people have endured. And even though I am a healer, there were days where i could sit there for a whole day and i still couldn’t find groups.
- I didn’t get my flying mount till about 2 months after I have hit 70. Hell, i didn’t even get my 60 mount till i was half way to 70.
- I did do enough kara to realise though, that i suck at rolling on weapons and armors needed for my class.
- I didn’t have any mods till the week or 2 before i quit my server. So alot of things i have learnt after getting my mods were i was stupid.
To start off with, when you’re new to the game, even if you’re 70, bear in mind that most people have played this game for over 2 years. If they give you constructive advice, listen and play it out before dismissing it entirely. Infact, listen first, worry later.
Here are a few mods (direct download links) that i feel is essential to levelling without too much interruptions to playing, of course there are variance of these, but these are what i used:
- LittleWigs - this covers the bosses in instances that belongs in the outlands. It warns you when and what’s going to happen next, assuming you have read up on some of the bosses at least. Of course, if you haven’t, and something shines big, red and flashy, it’s time to run or shield up, and have pots up. basic survival instincts, darling.
- Lightheaded - from the first few quests (although seriously, if you need help for the first 5 quests ever, you shouldn’t be gaming) right through to end-game stuff, this add-on parses helpful comments from WoWhead. This includes: mob locations, strategies to soloing some of the more difficult mobs, mob levels, quest suggested levels and the xp/rep you get for completing the quests. The mob locations though, is best used with the next suggested add-on..
- Cartographer - One of the best map add-ons ever, you can even stalk your guildies with it! that’s if they have the mod as well. On the flashy side, you can even find attachments that help you farm plants, mines and what not - it can get a little overwhelming though. With this add-on, plus some add-on attachments and Lightheaded, it can pin point you to exact locations of NPCs, quest mobs and quest locations. It also saves trainer locations in towns, so all you have to do is to open the map up and follow the blue dot.
- Inventory - I have used a few bags/inventory mods, mostly so i can organise my bags well and know what i have. While this is not entirely necessary, it is less painful than what Blizzard has given us. And why is it useful at lower levels? it helps me to see, instantly in one window (and not like 50 windows) what i need to freaking vendor.
- Omen - This updates every few days/hours/mins but this is a very important add-on, espcially if you are into end-game raiding. It tells you your threat, and gets more accurate when more people have it. Between 60-70, your tank should be pulling the threat, not you. if you are, and you’re not a tank, then you should know what to do.
There are obviously more add-ons out there, but it can be overwhelming to get too much to start off with. Blizzard don’t hate add-ons, so it’s really ok to get them. Do get virus scanners though, since some of them can be laced with loving. If you don’t get anything else, at least get Lightheaded and Cartographer so you don’t have to alt tab and guesstimate to hell.
Levelling in WoW is very easy, what with quests and the huge amount of xp per mob we kill. The quests for alliances can be a bitch (tried and tested) while hordies have to endure a different pain of their own (Tarren mill offers more xp, but more Allies shoving shit up our asses). The trick is to find one comfortable Zone (there’s add-ons out there that recommend zones too), sit there for 5-10 levels, and then moving on. On a PVP server, it can be an ass because there are asses out there. I have just been camped by a Tauren for the past 30 mins myself, so yes, i know the pain.
If you choose to solo your way up to 70 though, bear in mind that soloing skills are different from grouping skills. Some people know that innately, some people have to be slapped around with it. If you really want to get to 70 quick and painlessly, by all means, don’t do instances. but do yourself and everyone else a favour: When you’re 70, run through at least all the instances in Outlands till you are revered with each related faction before you run through heroics/raiding.
Why is that important? Why are people being asses and checking armory on me? Isn’t being 70 and wielding a weapon enough?
no. The truth and simple fact of the matter is Progression is labelled as progression and made out of reach from fresh 70s (although not so much that way now) because right off the bat, you wouldn’t be able to survive it. Imagine being a fresh 70, with welfare epics, but have only soloed your whole life so far… and then wanting to hop into Karazhan with no clue or hint on how to play your class in a group scenario.
you can possibly wipe people. you won’t just be a deadweight, you will be a walking volcano if shit goes to hell.
The last thing people want to do, is to log in, throw together what they think is an okay group, and wipe on trash mobs. guess who has to pay the monthly fees? not you. Guess who has only, say, 3 hours to play after work? not you. Guess who doesn’t want to waste valuable time teaching newbies how to play their class and the bosses they would have to face? ALSO not you.
It’s not the fun people pay their money for, and soon, if they start disliking the game, it just might be because of you or the likes of you.
The most basic way you can have an idea what you can upgrade to, is to run to WoW’s Armory and click the arrow beside your current gear. This gives you a whole list of (whether you are specced for it or not) gears that you can upgrade into. Spend some time on them to decide what you need, where you can get them from, what to gem them and enchant them with. This is of course, complemented by the theorycrafts that you should have read and have an idea of what gears you should be looking at.
At the end of the day too, it is exceedingly necessary that one should have done instances to garner some of the purple items/gems that can possibly drop from heroics/normal instances to boost your gears. There are some trinkets that, while blue, can be extremely good like the hourglass from Black Morass. Once the instances have been farmed like there’s no tomorrow, you should be more than well prepared to start on raiding stuff post Kara (and that’s assuming you have been farming Kara and Gruul’s too).
Having Gold is an awesome thing. You may not be able to buy the best gears, but you can buy pretty good starting gears from Auction house (at a steep price) or from Reputation vendors. On top of that, if you have an easy abundance of them (considering the recent large spate of daily quests we can now do without too much pre-requisites), you should be able to purchase the gems you need to start off with AND enchants complete with the materials you need for enchanting.
These gold should not be spent stupidly upon:
- an epic flying mount.
- an epic 1k gold title
- the epic riding skill for no particular reason.
- Aesthetic stuff that contributes nothing towards your gear or progression
Of course, the above is always important, and part of the “fun factor†in the game. Epic flying skill is needed for netherwing quests, but if you don’t buy the mount right off, the point is moot. If your gear sucks, the point is even more moot. If your point of the game is so that you can have all the pretty and expensive stuff, then by all means, spend your gold on stupid shit.
go buy a soap on a rope too in the mean time, it adds to the shiny collection, no?
but if your intention is to raid, is to group up, these are supposed to be the last things to care for.
there are now a hundred and one dailies out there that doesn’t need your epic flying mount to be effective and still earn gold. Farming mines and herbalism does not necessary dictate that you fly faster than everyone and their mums to get to the node. If you are farming at some hours of the day, there’s no one but you flying at turtle speed to the node. so there is no excuse for “flying fasterâ€. Hell, if you are going at turtle speed, chances are the node’s probably respawned by the time you fly there, even if someone’s ahead of you.
and the title thing? are you serious? How’s that useful? “i want to have fun raiding with everyone†but if you are a prot pally with 13k hp, and you want to tank SSC, that’s never going to happen with your shitty gears that you can upgrade with 1k gold worth of mats (aka the tankatronic goggles). even people with the gold to fling don’t necessarily give 2 shits about the ugly ass title. there’s better things to buy and show off your excessive wealth AFTER you have gotten the pretty gears to show off, like the Cenarion War Hippogryph which is actually an expensive, but USEFUL item.
So how do i learn my class, bosses, etiquettes?
- Etiquette
Different servers expects different loot etiquettes. Some of the most basic that you should know is: IF IT’S NOT MEANT FOR YOUR CLASS, DON’T BOTHER ROLLING ON IT! E.G if you’re a hunter, don’t roll on cloth stuff. I know we are all poor and stuff fresh at 70, but that doesn’t mean you deserve all the purples lying down.
The other important thing one needs to know is that every game is different. If people suggests that forums is how the whole Guild communicates, fully uitilise it. Learn your guild’s raid dates, and know that you have to turn up on those dates and hours, even if you aren’t raiding, and listen in on vent to see how they work. Don’t talk, don’t ask questions irrelevant to the raid at that time and definitely don’t spam chat channels. It’s rude, and you are definitely not a priority during a raid.
Please don’t whine about pugging as a , and how long it fucking takes. Hey Sweetheart, we have all went through that once upon a time. There are reasons why people pug, and people still pug. If pugs are hard, you would learn to treasure your raiding times. You would also learn how to save lives in the nick of time. You would also learn not to fuck around for 6-7 hours, because you understand how painful it is to wait for a group.
there are few reasons why I personally don’t pug anymore. I don’t have much time nowadays, not even to raid. So when i log on, i just do my dailies, which in itself can take upwards of 2 - 4 hours, since i do alot of random shit in between as well (not to mention the “oh my god, BGs sucks†factor). I just can’t find the time to pug instances anymore. but, i have done pugs before, i have wiped on trashes before i even met the first boss of even normal instances while in a pug, i have waited a whole day for a group once, only to lose random characters when the group is almost full… etc. So yes, i do understand it’s painful, but it’s a necessary pain to “grow and learnâ€.
Learn to use vent. Stop whining, stop spamming, and use vent correctly. Interact with your guild, and you don’t have to spam us with verbal tales of your mathematical calculations of how your shots were missing the head and headbox and how it should have been 
everidon’tknowanymore… just be real and considerate. really.
Stop asking help for everything. Google is your best friend, next is WoWwiki. LFG channel is wonderful, and in some servers, so is trade chat for groups. Help is of course often offered, but you need to learn that you can’t learn if you get help every step of the way. On top of that, people log in with intentions to do their own stuff. If you can’t be bothered to find things out yourself, then they shouldn’t be bothered helping you.
For a personal example… a friend offered to help me do my quests coz he was bored. All i had left in a certain zone was just group quests, so i didn’t mind the help. They were yellow, orange and red when he started. By the time he finished helping me, not only had i have no other quests left in that zone, or the other same levelled zones, i had only gained 2 levels. The next quest is only available 5 levels from then. I was royally fucked with that character unless i grind on mobs.
The rest, go figure it out yourself. by the time you can buy and support your own games, hopefully you have socialised enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong.
- Class
There are many compendiums worth of “theorycraft†or essays written on each and every class. googling can bring up some for you, and there are on-going blogs that discusses everything too. here’s a few from places that i do know:
Holy Priests - Elitist Jerks Compendium for Holy Priests.
Shadow Priests - Elitst Jerks again, because i am too lazy to google too much.
Protection Paladins - Elitist Jerk Compendium, Some Ideas on Prot Gears to look out for.
The Healadin - Elitst Jerk’s Healadin Thread.
BM Hunter - Ami Yuy’s Guide on WoW_Ladies: She also has links to other guides, like BigRedKitty and Elitist Jerk Compendiums. Not to mention, THE Godly spreadsheet on dps gears and talents - Cheeky’s Spreadsheet.
There’s alot more compendiums out there, on top of all the classes and talents available, than i really care to list here. The fact is, if you haven’t googled about your class or cared to find out more by yourself, than you have failed. and if you couldn’t care about your own character, why should someone else care about it for you?
Elitist Jerks have compendiums about everything though, so do flip through them, for both your class and profession needs. If you don’t understand what they mean by some terms or abbreviations, then you can ask.
- Boss Fights
And as to learning bosses? First, grab a Boss Mod of some sort. I am using BigWigs (thus LittleWigs), but i do know alot of people love DeadlyBossMod, which i think comes packages with an auto whisperer to tell people to fuck off coz you’re raiding. These mods tells you, basically, what’s coming up next in how many seconds. On certain bosses, they also tell you who’s afflicted with what.
But, before you can raid with these nifty things, you need to learn boss Fights. Each boss has his/her own fight and it changes with each “level†of health (to put it simply). The basic idea of each boss’s fight and strats can be found on WoWWiki, under their respective names. And then there’s Bosskiller, a site full of strategies, pictures and some videos i think. Even youtube would have some fraps of strats for each boss.
No one picks [ Insert Character’s class here ] up for groups!
Oh Em Gee. Let me surprise you with something - EVEN TANKS AND HEALERS GET IGNORED FOR GROUPS TOO! There are always a few reasons why, and one of the most unpleasant ones would be:
- you’re already known to be a dumbshit on that particular server
- Your class’s has always been known to have retards > intellectuals (reasons why the names Huntards and Retardins have sprouted).
But that aside, let’s look at the real reasons why:
- Group make-ups
At the higher levels, and especially for heroics, one has to be picky to ensure survival, less time wasted and doing the important things. You can’t say “i can’t afford it, i take whatever comes because otherwise i can’t get a groupâ€. Unfortunately, then, you are just wasting your time and everyone else’s time because chances are, with a poor group set up, you will probably just wipe on trash.
you generally only need (5 men):
1 tank (Prot warrior, Feral druids or prot pally works fine)
1 healer (Priests are normally awesomest, but i am biased)
1 Crowd controller (Mage is wonderful, but so are rogues, warlocks and hunters who knows how to use their traps)
and the other 2 have to be dps-es. Druids can morph into cat form for DPS i guess, but someone once advised against it when i asked, mostly because it seems not many druids carry 2 gears.
Now, if you have too many healers (aka 2 or 3) then you are missing out on DPS. It can not only mean a wipe, but it also means a long painful wipe. The same is true for too many tanks. An unproperly specced healer or tank can mean less effective heals or not enough threat being generated - which can again lead to a long painful and wasteful death.
Perhaps, a suggestion i guess, what can help you get such effective groups is to be good friends with a good tank/healer, if you are a dps-er. This ensures group survival and therefore ensures people want in on the group. It helps saves time to look for a tank or a healer, and so you only have to focus on one necessary class - not that it’s entirely drama free either, but it does lessens the drama.
Heroics wise, i believe it’s great to have a healer whose +healing ranges around 1200 - 1400. a Tank should be around.. 450 i believe. That is one thing i can’t remember, since i have always trusted the tanks who have offered to tank to be good enough - and they generally are except for one poor sod. It is generally advised that DPS-ers are at least in blues or welfare epics.
now, if the group’s already filled up except for a CC, Tank or Healer, and your character’s class doesn’t fall in any of these categories or you suck at being a CC, then you don’t make the cut. Sad, but true. There can be few exceptions, but few would want to consider the repair bill for someone’s sake
- Gears Does not fit the casting call
The sad thing is, if you are lfg in Heroics/raids, you have to be geared right. If you aren’t you WILL fail the cut. And that is not an insult to you, but a direct hint that perhaps you shouldn’t jump the gun and hope to do heroics/raids before you are ready. People do armory checks on pugs because they don’t want to waste time wiping, or having you fly all the way to instances only to realise that you suck. Responsible groups would have checked you before you enter the instance, since the heroics resets only once every day or something stupid along that line, and raids resets every week.
Therefore, the only way to improve? don’t jump the gun. Do BGs, run normal instances, get better, and join heroics/pugged raids.
So there you go. This isn’t an exhaustive list of stuff, it’s just a reminder there’s a shitload out there to learn and read while playing the game. If people worked hard for their gears, to play their class, it’s only right that you do so so that you’re not a dangerous deadweight to anyone. I mean, we all play to have fun, and if your idea of fun is shiny pretty things, go ahead. But don’t be a detriment to someone else whilst you are doing it. that is not right.
Because i was so net deprived…
i am going to bore you with more of my Vista experience!
First look, aesthetically it’s less boxy and… holed up (however you want to put it) as compared to XP. I must say, i have always been a Mac OS’s fan, mostly because of it’s beauty aesthetically and thereafter, because of it’s ease of use once you got past the first week of playing with it.
Evidentally, Microsoft thinks so too. I am pretty sure there’s a thousand and one sites out there telling everyone about this, but to see this for myself O.o and then having been able to mess around with it for the past few days, it’s quite… fun.
Obviously, though, Microsoft somehow managed to make this beautiful OS painful on the ram. On checking the ram usage, i am seeing a minimum clock-in range of 500 megs. This dumbs down the beauty of the OS. With my old Ibook, which had about 512mb ram, the OS hardly registered (i believe the current OS would be slightly different). XP itself didn’t use very much. It’s not till i run 2-3 Lineage 2 windows that the 1gig ram started sputtering and swearing at me, and that’s considering the immense amount of stuff i have running in the background (Trillian, multiple-tabbed firefox, mp3s… blah).
While it doesn’t matter much to me now, considering my immense 4gig ram (woohoo), it will be stupid to have just 1 gig ram should i upgrade my desktop to Vista.
Still, i like the shadings, shadows and all the beauty of it. At least, since i can’t own a mac for now, i can still own a sub-standard copy of it (yes, i still don’t like microsoft :D)
Not to mention, like Mac, there’s also a “miniature” screencap of your window when you hover over the tabs on the taskbar.
Now, this performance thing amazes me just a little bit. I am not quite sure why it existed, if not for bragging rights or to assure non-techs their pc is 1337. On a personal level, i think most people should know at the back of their heads whether the games/programs they are intending on buying CAN be played to a certain quality on their current machine.
and of course, there would be people like me who conveniently forgets that when new games comes out, and walks out to just buy it, COZ i could. and then i couldn’t play it for eons.
Despite that, This rating thing seems a little… i am not sure how to put it. For dramatic effects? “oh yeah, my pc has a rating of 5.9 (the max)” “oh damn, my pc’s only 2… can only play Vista’s and old games nia, pai seh pai seh”. of course, when you click for more information here and there, i can only see lame help-lines and sales pitches.
The rating though, is related to this little “category” thing. I am not quite sure about the rest of the categories, although it seems only the Games related ones are on “auto categorise”. Basically, whenever i install a game, whether it’s direct install or a port over form my old pc, the category/folder instantly recognises it, and adds it to the Game folder. This “add” though, is more of a quick link area.
This is helpful for some, albeit minor, reasons:
1) when you are forgetful as to where you have put the folders
2) when you want to de-clutter your desktop
3) when you seriously just want to login and play.
The ratings and performance was also meant to be shown with the games. However, it seems that other than the Vista pre-loaded games, it can’t do a comparison with other games that i currently own (which isn’t much). Also, COD4 wasn’t “auto-categorised” for some reason.
I have managed to install the various other things i need, and everything seems to be running fine. Most of the “Enhanced” features, or pre-loaded stuff by Dell, has not been tried because they look and feel TOO COMPLICATED. Obviously, Vista’s widgets-wannabe are working, but it’s not the same 
i kinda like the “overlay” feel, plus the panda widget that i was using, plus a whole host of other stuff too.
i mean, i know i shouldn’t compare vista to Mac, it’s just now the aesthetics are sssooo similar, it makes me miss Mac more.
aight end of another long, and useless post! <3
w00t
i finally got my laptop after so much angst and anxiety. all it took was a threat of cancelling orders, demanding a refund, and a very very mad boss and it was at my door in 2 hours.
2 fucking hours. geez, it could have been resolved yesterday. fuckers.
will post picts and personal opinions when i have set it up and ready to go.
And it all boils down to…
First off, the good news: the status has finally changed SLIGHTLY on dell’s website. they are not responding to my emails, but since that shifted, MAYBE i will consider keeping the order. morons.
And now, let’s get the dilemma outta the way:
Lineage 2 has totally lost it’s appeal to me, one way or another. Lil’s stuff made me lost my taste with NCSoft. That’s not to say i was already playing it prior to that, it just made me feel… lonelier if that was entirely possible. That said, I hope Seth’s stopped paying for it! since yeah, i am hoping to let it die.
But, conversations with Wadge earlier last week made me had some thoughts. Perhaps, i just need a new lease of life elsewhere. So here’s my question: Should i transfer? Even if i don’t play much, since some people still play, she can be of use with someone else. And no, OWA’s not allowed to respond on this question SINCE HE BOOTED KAMAELTOE OUTTA CLAN!!!
In WoW, the armory was opened since sunday or something along that line. Unfortunately, because i haven’t had much of a chance to even play properly, my grand total of badges of justice was a paltry 20. TWENTY! so i could buy nothing of the new gears. I should have saved up those badges i had, but 2.4 wasn’t… known to be at least for a few months at that point in time, so i bought my pvp cloak.
guess who feels stupid right now?
At any rate, Moo kindly brought me along with him and his friends into Heroic Magisters’ Terrace. I have only seen that thing on normal mode, i really like it, just felt that the instance was incredibly LONG and draggy. or well, just too big. but i like it, because of the new level of difficulty it now exhibits:
the idea of pvp (or something close to it) within an instance. of course, the attempts by the mobs are sometimes laughable, and on heroic mode, it does seem to pose a challenge. Regardless, i am constantly reminded of how DVC used to be in Lineage 2, when it was the ONLY high end place to go level. LOL… 2 very different games, yet categorised similarly. I am enjoying the new Isle as you can see, not to mention the ceaseless amounts of gold that’s currently raining down from the dailies
in terms of pvp, Eddie has joined us on the server. in an attempt to raise his character’s gears, Moo and i got together with him on 2v2s and 3v3s. Moo’s a prot warrior, spec MS over the weekends, while i am just stubbornly refusing to move out of being a holy priest. Whilst i am finally ranging somewhere in terms of resilience (340 at last look), it’s still no where near mid-range at least (which is currently 450?). The thing is, it’s been hard to coordinate any forms of pvp ever since i transferred to Spirestone that i have virtually no arena points (or nothing enough to amount to something). On top of all that, one has to consider my own lack of PVP usefulness to anyone but myself.
So i created my own teams, chuck Eddie and Moo in them, and voila. and because i love my pets so much, they are named after them:
Demon Kitties and Roast Bunnies. go check out the flags too perfect renditions of both stupid animals
right, end of long and useless rant. <3
Dell Woes..?
So i had a quick glance at Dell again today, in the hope of finding the laptop sleeve i was eyeing. And… i found…
in place of the previous promotion the laptop was on, whereby i received 2 years XPS premium services (God knows what it really entails, since there seems to be 2 different warranties written up for that) and a printer, it’s now…
a 120gigabyte seagate harddrive with the same 2 year xps premium services. and judging by the way they wrote it up, i am assuming it’s an external hard drive. So, i called up to first, double check if they have gotten the cheque from work, and secondly to check if i can just switch it around.
The customer service staff first tell me in a long roundabout way that they didn’t know if they have got the cheque and that it takes a few days to update the system anyways, and secondly.. they transferred me to a dead end with regards to the change of promotion. No problems, i have been a telemarketer before.
But the next person transferred me back.. to the first person! On top of all that, when he realised what i wanted to do, he spent the next 30 minutes droning on about marketing strategies, and how DELL IS JUST TRYING TO MAKE US SPEND MONEY AND WASTE OUR WARRANTIES because a hard drive isn’t worth as much work and effort and money as compared to warranties!!! so they don’t have to attend to us!!!! *whatthefuckface*
And… i was pretty sure i got it right, so i re-directed him back to the website and said, “look, there’s still a 2 year warranty, just a 120gig hard drive…” and then he sighed, and started talking to me like i was stupid.. “i know, i know, but the prices are probably different. i mean, look at your order..”
i snapped “there’s nothing different. the components are all default, except for a sound card. sound card is like, 0 bux.”
so now, i am fuming, i still need to find the cheque number, but this time i will talk to a supervisor. WTH do i need a marketing strategy lecture for?!?!
it’s all mine!! aaallll mine…!!
I got the pass today, to get my laptop. It’s been approved by boss, and this thing above is being salary sacrificed to be MINE. mine! my first real asset! wheee!!!
It’s a Dell XPS 1530. so far, in terms of reviews, they have been pretty all right for both the price and specs factor. i mean, hell, who wouldn’t want an alienware? but WHO CAN AFFORD AN ALIENWARE? $6000 dude?
As to why product red, of the lot that was there, it was cheapest to buy it spec as, which is currently the best i can get out there at the moment for not that much.
Specs:
Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.5GHz/ 800 FSB/ 6MB Cache)
4GB Dual-channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 2 (FOUR WHOLE GIGS!!!)
320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
ok end of important specs. it has got wifi and stuff, and i might roll it around and load mac os on it too to be dual booted, see how i feel about vista first (eww). It will arrived in about 2 weeks. *twiddle thumbs* so yay to me /happydance…
meanwhile… WADGE, LET’S GO OUT YO! i havent seen you and there’s movies to be watched with your new wife! (ok not so new now, but wotever.)
Scary exciting!
After some thought, i decided to grab a laptop. It’s going to be easier for me later on when I intend to commute that much between work and school, and home will just be… a quick hotel room to lie down in haha.
The thing is, i have no real savings to get one, nor the “right” avenues. i did have a laptop, but it’s about to die every time i care to make it work. It’s slightly better since i use it less now, but i really don’t want to chance my luck with that thing. I had a chat with my boss, and since i am a full timer now, i can salary sacrifice for it.
My very own laptop! my first asset! ok, so i did paid for my own pc, but since i wasn’t working then, i still consider this very much a part of Dad’s assets. It’s kind of mentally exciting to own something… outright (well kinda, but it’s only over 24 weeks or thereabouts, anyways).
I haven’t quite decided what to get, although i am pretty sure it will end up being a dell, since i can customise it quite a bit. It’s just a little sad for me that i can’t quite “build” my own laptop the way i can customise my pc, but some things just have to go eh? I have to graduate, so i guess i can’t game as much - at the same time, i recognise that i can possibly have some free time!
during holidays!
so i need to have a laptop that can take the beating, without a price tag that beats me.
I am kind of looking at inspiron 1720 (in pink!). I have had too much problems with compaq and acer in the past to make me consider them. one of my friends used to work with HP, and told me that they sucked for various reasons i can’t disclose. I need something that can game, and game, and be left on for a while longer than 5 hours.
suggestions would be nice :p
it’s a WHOLE WEEK OFF!!!
Screw you Drey! lmao
i have my whole week off! i have been just playing WoW. Gomenasai, minna-san, i got tired of logging in to lonliness. it’s really scary to login to Lineage 2, and find no one on, and the few people that i still recognise… that are botting. so for now, i think i will lay of L2. besides, WoW’s less time consuming for now.
What am i intending to do this week? Not quite sure. I haven’t had this much time on my hands for a while now. First off, i want to raid in WoW. I haven’t raid properly in AGES. seriously. Last time i raid properly for the whole week was before i transferred. thereafter, it’s a sporadic appearance. such a waste of my 15 dollars.
In preparation for that, i have switched around my whole UI. Initially, i know i started off being scared of being trojanned and shit like that. but, learning the first few add-ons changed a few things for me, so i have utterly converted to having nice little UI’s fixed according to my needs.
I know, it looks a little messy at the moment. i am still fine tuning it. alot of set UI configurations didn’t suit my taste (icons too small, fonts like a fucking bunch of ants crawling across my screen). so this is still a work in progress. i am rather proud of the new UI set up though, so i have cross posted this pict all across the interw3b, haha…
i know, it’s only a week’s off, but hopefully this is a sign of better times to come i am so exhausted ever since november that this week feels so surreal that i have to occupy myself with something. hehehe…
I kind of left my army of cameras at work, along with my ds lite, so i can’t show you how pretty my violin is, nor my tiny collection of mangas… but let just say, damn i love sales. It’s only like 3 bucks or something for mangas at some corner shop. hiding in a hole to read is wonderful.
I started my violin lessons last week. It was a little different to what i was used to, in terms of piano. My tutor has dedicated 2 weeks worth of free lessons just so that i can get posture/figurings right. because she herself has experienced serious injuries before, she is kind of paranoid about it. Thus, i won’t learn any real pieces till next week or the week after.
Even though it’s just posturing though, i am beginning to realise how hard this is. When you hear singular notes being played on a violin… it’s not coz it’s “pressed” or anything like the piano. The bow has to specifically touch, and only touch, just that note. ~.~ at the moment, it sounds daunting. i have really no sense of being gentle on something i have to hold.
will throw in more pictures of stuff when i get my camera back - I AM COOKING THIS WEEK WEWT!
Fucking stupid emo gamers
so, i transferred servers on WoW to be with some friends from back in Lineage. Some drama exploded, some chick threatened to cry in her office (oh noez, damsel in distress, let’s give her some loving attention), and basically the hammer came down that we can’t raid without guildies, we can’t say no to people - yada yada yada.
 FINE.
but things went even more stupid, when the officers refuse to meet the more “hardcore raiders” halfway, such as open up a third raiding day and to clamp down on drama queens, or have some raiding standards (seriously, raiding with greens? i mean, at 70, even quest blues are better than lvl 60 greens!).
so everyone gquit. and poor old afk me, who have to work and so one and so forth…. was banned from forums? i guess i am gkicked too. sure, you have to right to have no notice given, but you want people to respect each other in such an environment?
respect the officers?
not going to happen.
yous can go fuck yourselves.
meanwhile, since i am “over geared” i can take my mooncloth ass somewhere else, such as back to daggerspine where there are less emo and more stalkers. w00t.
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no wonder the guild name’s Teen Girls’ squad.
Kamael!
made a new character on Lineage 2 (like i actually have time to play it). the hair options are awesome! i wonder if i can force my hair around like that. meanwhile, it has garnered the length.
i didn’t play the pts this time, since i obviously had no time for it. however, there are definitely some welcome changes that i have noticed, particularly map updates and the xp increment. woo…
