Inspiration.

***CLASSIFIED***
***AUTHORIZED EYES ONLY***
Transmission ID: 2239-001-A73
Transmission Date: 2073/03/22
Transmission Length: 1:37
---Transmission Text (Dictated)---
(Calm) "I know you're out there. Listening. (Pause) Watching. (Pause) Waiting. I have complete faith this will one day reach you. It may pass through the hands of some of your associates along the way, but that's fine. Just fine. Let them know. Let them ask questions that you can't; no, (w:e) won't answer.

Because, you see, it doesn't matter what you elect to tell them. Soon enough, the whole solar system will know. (Rising agitation) I'll tell every woman, man, child, dog, cat, orphan, politician, (yelling) low life piece of shit scumbag... (distraction; pause) (deep breathing)

(Calm) Most importantly, I'll tell every single person you've ever stepped upon in your miserable, piece of shit life, and I'll make them into an army. Then we'll come for your associates. Your (w:e) friends. Your (w:e) family. We will make them suffer, just as ours do.

(Quiet) Only then, when everything you think you held dear is stripped away, Mr. Doe, will I begin my personal vengeance upon you.

---Transmission Termination---

Apparently, Dual Wielding is actually pretty good when you do it right.

I was not happy about Blizzard's changes to the Frost tree, supporting dual-wielding over 2Handed. I did not like how they gutted Frost Strike and the Vengeful Heart sigil, making them both worthless for two handed frost users and basically destroying my favourite spec.

However, I like to think I'm adaptable, and prepared for the change. I picked up some decent 1 handed weapons, a lot of Armor Penetration gear, and figured I could either go 2 handed Blood or dual wield.

At first, I tried dual-wielding. I was not impressed. I had heard great things about the Glyph of Disease spec, the first spec that was capable of actually using the glyph without a significant DPS loss. I found it unwieldy, clunky, and prone to mishap. You had a one to two second window to refresh your diseases, and even just standing on a target dummy I found myself missing it by a fraction of a second. I can't imagine running that spec on a movement heavy fight, such as Mimiron or Vezax.

Next I tried the Unholy version of DW. It's a strange spec, and one I expect to be nerfed eventually. Typically, Unholy uses Scourge Strike as its main 'nuke' strike. This spec, however, utilizes Obliterate, which is supposed to be Frost's nuke strike. It supposedly works well, but for some reason I wasn't able to produce results with it. The most appealing thing about the Unholy spec is the bonus run speed (optional), and the permanent ghoul pet. The latter is both a plus and a negative, however, since there are fights he's prone to die on, forcing you to lose a significant amount of damage.

Failing those two, I went to two-handed Blood for a few days, and loved it. The gear ratings worked out very well, too. I had perfect hit rating, slightly above cap on expertise, and 4500 attack power unbuffed, not to mention a shit load of Armor Penetration. Best of all, I was able to solo instances I couldn't before. Heroic Shadow Labs, Heroic Magister's Terrace, and Zul'Gurub are the notable ones I solo'd while Blood spec.

However, people kept saying that dual-wield was doing extremely well. Begrudgingly, I tried it again. This time, I decided to pick up a spec that more closely resembled the rotation I used while two-handed Frost, simply to make the transition easier. Before I made the change though, I ran some Test Dummy runs with my Blood spec, so I could have something to compare my results with.

As two handed Blood, over a course of 10 minutes, I could sustain an average of 3700 DPS, with spikes upwards of 3850.

My first attempt at dual-wield, a five minute dummy test, produced a result of 2800 average DPS, with no notable spikes.

Pretty lackluster, and was about to give up again when I noticed something strange - not a single Rime proc happened in five minutes. That's pretty odd, since Rime has a 15% proc off of Obliterate, and I Obliterate four times every 20 seconds. That led me to my stupid, stupid, stupid error.

I was still using Death Strike as my F/U strike. Thinking back to when I tried the other Dual-Wield specs, and I'm near positive I was doing the exact same thing.

So... after a quick swap of my hotkeys, I tried again.

Over a ten minute parse, recount showed my Dual-Wield spec at 3800 average DPS with spikes upwards of 4100. This is with weapons of lower iLevel than my two-handed axe, no longer expertise capped, and 700 lower attack power than my Blood spec.

Ummm... I'm thinking I'll be dual-wielding in the future. Now I just need to farm some quality weapons.

From the head Developer's desk.

What I'm about to post has been smuggled out of Blizzard headquarters. Many Bothans died to bring us this information. It's in regards to the 10 man raid instance that's to bridge the gap between the Argent Coliseum and Icecrown.

And yes, it's a troll raid.

---------------------------


Dear Dev Team:

It's time to make an executive decision on the direction that our raid for path 3.3 will be. We already know that patch 3.1 will be Ulduar, 3.2 will be the Coliseum, and Icecrown won't be ready for another few months after that. We will need something in between 3.2 and Icecrown to hold the players over. Something quick to whip up and without any real substance.

I think it's time for another troll raid. We already have all the textures; we'll simply recycle them from the other troll raids we've abused over the years. We'll put it where Gun'drak is, but call it something confusing. Like 'Zul'Gun', or 'Gun'Gurub'. Part of the time sink will be the players simply wondering which damned instance they're supposed to be heading towards. Genious!

Next we need a theme. The players are tired of the 'One badass boss siphoning the aspects of blah blah blah' shit that we've done in Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. Let's make it a little bit more low key... like, a Village or something. Maybe the Trolls are simply trying to rebuild their ancestral home and have a nice place to live. Let's go with that for a moment.

For bosses, we can have various worker types. For instance, 'Constable Troll' will be the head of security. You have to defeat him first so the rest of the trolls aren't alerted to your presence right away. Maybe this stops the patrols from ganking the raid while they try to make delicate pulls. 'Constable Troll' has a nightstick that he saps random raid members with.

Next, we can have 'Construction Troll'. He's over in the unfinished wing of the instance, where the trolls are trying to put up new walls or something. 'Construction Troll' can be a ranged fight, where he stands atop a brick wall and hurls materials down upon the raid. Melee have to beat their heads against a wall to bring him down. For shits and giggles, let's give the wall spikey bits to represent a damage reflection so that they kill themselves attacking it.

We can flesh out the other bosses later. I'm thinking ideas out loud now, something like 'Old Western Troll', 'Rides Around on a Motorcycle Troll', 'Casino Operator Troll', and 'Army General Troll.'

The final boss can be Mayor Troll. He needs to have a bullshit, goofy mechanic to piss off the raiders. I know! We'll divide his platform into four coloured areas. Well use similar colours, like... Yellow, Mauve, Crimson, and Auburn. Four players will need to be dedicated to standing in a particular colour, and do some stupid emote when the boss enrages. Like, /dance. That'd be good. And they have to dance in a particular order!

Then, we'll have each dance do something special. Like, the person standing in the Yellow part will throw his arms up in the air. Auburn will make himself into a form of pyramid. Things like that.

So, that's where we're headed. Any questions?

I believe I can see the future.

Some days, I think that Trent Reznor is a fuckin' genius.

Apparently, I smell nice. (Spacial phenomena)

I've always been a fan of the 'personal space bubble.' Everyone has one. It's that area of space that you feel most comfortable in, and uncomfortable when anyone unwanted invades it. Everyone's personal bubble is slightly different, but I can safely say that very few people enjoy having someone stand right in their face when they're talking to them.

Imagine if society worked that way? Breath-mint and chewing gum sales would skyrocket. You could read more about someone through their complexion than their clothes. Eye colour would be a sign of station and rank.

Oh dear, I think I strayed a bit too close to reality there. Moving quickly along, before someone invokes Godwin's Law.

In any case, I find that even in multiplayer games, real world habits invade fantasy, and people have that same personal bubble around them. Just try herding a group of 25 people into a small cubby - it doesn't work. The logistics are fine; after all, avatars can stack on top of each other unlike real human beings, but people are resistant to the idea. Eventually one person scoots forward to exert his own personal space. Another person sees it, does the same, and before you know it, the raid leader is yelling for everyone to get their asses back into the gods damned cubby hole.

By the way, this whole process takes roughly four seconds to complete, and cycles indefinetly.

Lately, I've found that my fishing pole acts as a gigantic neon sign that says - "I no longer have any personal space. Please avatar hump me." For the life of me I can not figure this out. It doesn't matter where, though I find Wintergrasp is probably the most common place to find these peculiar brand of leech. The brand of fishing pole doesn't matter, though the basic pole tends to attract /laughs from the leeches. Open water, fish nodes, floating wreckage - all the same result.

Try it for yourself. Find yourself a secluded spot all to yourself, where you can fish in harmony without anyone else's bobber confusing theirs for yours. I damn well promise you that within 20 seconds of pulling out your fishing pole, a minimum of two other people will suddenly show up and fish right next to you, even though there's a gigantic zone full of other water areas that they can go fish at.

Aggravating.

As if that wasn't bad enough, though, I've witnessed at least one leech gain sentience of their actions. I was fishing in Wintergrasp, simply doing the daily. I walked a significant distance away from the Horde camp where you arrive from, and no other fishermen were near me. 10 seconds into my first cast, a solitary leech found me. My normal response is to move away from the leech and hope they find a new victim. Often times the leech will grow bored and move on to other functions... but this leech was persistant.

I moved away. He followed.

I moved again, further into dangerous territory known to house Alliance patrols. The leech stuck with me.

This both intruiged and aggravated me. I had to know why he was set on fishing right next to me. His response - "i dunno. u smell nice?"

Fishermen... I implore you! Stop using those Old Spices on each other! The only conclusion I can surmise so far is that it is somehow attracting the leeches to us, even long after the effect has dissipated.

It's to the point that I'm going to break a promise I made to myself. I'm going to buy a toy train set, and use it to scare away the leeches. And, if that doesn't work, I'm not above farming a Piccolo of the Flaming Fire. Let's see the leeches fish through that.

Arthas: Evil, or just lonely?

A friend of mine mentioned that he noticed that there was a lot of talking done in Wrath of the Lich King. This is to be expected, as Blizzard is trying to push more lore into the game to keep things fresh and interesting. However, it got me to thinking...

For the harbringer of evil, Arthas sure does talk a lot. I mean... A LOT.

It starts in the Culling of Stratholme. Okay, so this is technically before he's the Lich King, but already on his downward spiral and it sets a baseline for his expositional habits. Granted, some of the talking is done by his cohorts, but the bulk of the dialogue is Arthas'. The player has to suffer through a long cut scene just to start the event, as well as listen to him yammer on as you kill off minions of Mal'ganis and agens of the Infinite Dragonflight.

There's also a quest line on the Alliance side that recreates the Warcraft III scene with Arthas drawing Frostmourne and killing Muradin. I recall him being Chatty-Cathy in that scene as well, basically telling Muradin to shove his advice up his dwarven... ahem.

From this point, we see Arthas after he's become the Lich King. Yet, for all his bad ass armour and dour demeanour, he's still as talkative as ever. In the Wrathgate scene, we see him have a nice long conversation with the champions of the Alliance and Horde. Eventually the Forsaken traitors show up and ruin his monologue, forcing Arthas to flee the scene, but not before he gets a few last words in, of course!

The Lich King makes an appearance at the end of Drak'tharon keep. There, he compliments Drakuru for duping you into helping the evil cause, and promises more power, and yadda this, yadda that. It's all very touching, and of course, like all Evil Villians, the Lich King spares your life. Because you have potential.

Further in the Drakuru storyline, you meet up with him again in Zul'drak. At the very end, you face off against Drakuru, and just before you kill him, he summons Arthas for help. The Lich King, in a long monolugue, deems Drakuru a failure and destroys him. You'd think he'd finish the job by also destroying you, but he spares your life... yup, you guessed it, citing your potential.

In Utgard Pinnacle, the first boss, Svala Sorrowgrave, is interrupted talking to the Lich King by the party. Well, I shouldn't interrupted, because they continue their conversation while your party bounce around the room like dipshits waiting for the event to start. Which takes forever, because Arthas talks forever. Again, the same promises; more power, destruction of her enemies, yadda this, yadda that. Of course, Arthas knows Svala will fail. She's only the first boss of the dungeon, and you have potential.

Last example I can think of... Icecrown, a five man group quest where you challenege Overthane Balargarde on top of a citadel. Halfway through the fight, the Lich King makes an appearance. Again, he throws out a couple lines, strikes down your helper (but not you!), then merrily watches as you slaughter one of his greatest champions. Afterwards, he gives you an open invitation to Icecrown Citadel. Why? Well, because you have potential, of course!

So what's my point? Arthas isn't some brooding dark lord, bringer of despair and chaos. He's just... well, lonely! It gets boring sitting up on a throne all day and night that freezes your ass. Even thick, bad ass armour can't get a chill like that out. Really, he just wants a friend. It's why he keeps raising all his minions; he's simply looking for a companion. Hunters tame pets, engineers build robots, and Arthas raises the dead.

But... it's not working. They keep rotting away, or getting killed off by intrepid adventurers. So I think he's playing the long con - Arthas sees the player as his next buddy. That's why he keeps sparing your life, even though he could easily snuff it in an instant. He wants you to see that he's really not such a bad monster after all... just, misunderstood. He only wanted to do what was right for Lordaeron. In doing so, all his friends and family abandoned him, and now he's trying to fill that void with the player(s).

Mark my words, the boss fight with Arthas will have a Friendship! finisher move, much like Mortal Kombat 2.

Think more with your brain, please.

What is it about female voices that drives males crazy? Oh, that's right, hormones. Dipshits.

A new raider joins our crew. If said raider is male, nobody bats an eye. "Hey, howdy" is about the best greeting they'll get. No problem, respect comes with time. It's to be expected.

What if that new raider is a female, though? Suddenly every raider with a hose between his legs forgets how to function properly. All thoughts of downing a boss is pushed out of their heads by thoughts of a different kind of downing. It's enough to make you want to punch someone through their monitor.

Hey guys? Want to know the secret to why females don't play video games with you? It's because you tend to make them feel like objects for your enjoyment. Knock it off please. You're giving your species a bad name.

************

I'll be the first to admit when I'm wrong, if it's deserved. I've been rather pessimistic lately about our progress, and had no right to be. I was one of those people who (silently) predicted that our guild would wipe for weeks on Thorim and Mimiron.

I was proven wrong the night we downed both. And the next week when we did it again. Mimiron was one-shotted both weeks. Thorim we still have a few hiccups, but nothing major.

I was proven wrong on Tuesday, when my 10 man Hard-Mode run was on Hodir. I thought that holding Bloodlust for the final minute push was the appropriate thing to do. Instead, it was better used early on in the fight, leading to us getting a succesful 2:55 kill. (Grats Kir on the staff, once again).

I can admit to being wrong. After all, as I've said in the past; "Our successes define us, but we learn to succeed through our failures."

Now... do we make attempts at hard mode Freya... or hard mode Iron Council... or skip it and farm Thorim for some shoulders? I doubt we'll get much more accomplished before the release of 3.2 and I lose the interest of my raiders again.

I think we'll keep at what we know how to do and get some people geared for the upcoming raid instance. It shames me to admit I'm still wearing iLevel 200 epics in my main set...

***********

The more news I hear about Dual-Wielding in Frost, the less excited I become about it. It seems that even Unholy dual-wields are pushing better numbers than the new Frost, which was supposed to be the saviour of our tree. Our niche, if you will.

If this keeps up, I may end up respeccing Blood after all.

Random thoughts.

1) Just how badly can you piss Death off in WoW? Start with an Undead, and make him a Death Knight. Slap on a soulstone. Sprinkle any amount of battle rezzes to flavour.

Mix during a fight against Arthas for most comedic effect.


2) If I had the ability to train mobs onto an NPC, Old Man Barlow would be my first victim. And second. And third. And the trains would continue until the rat bastard coughed up a couple of croc pets.


3) Some days I miss EQ. I remember all the good times I had, even during the hardest times. I can look back fondly upon 3 hour corpse runs, or Plane of Fear break-ins. I even smile when I remember the torment that was the Vex Thal key.

Then I remember all the boring times, and recognize that only parts of EQ I miss. I'm positive the same will be said of WoW when I stop playing it for good.


4) If a cannibal goes to a see a movie, does he have to go alone due to the 'No Outside Food' rule?

Why we needed the nerfs.

Lately, all the big buzz on various boards are about the vast amounts of nerfs being thrown around. Nerfs to Jewelcrafting, nerfs to various PvP issues, and probably the most talked about amongst class forums; the nerfs to Death Knights.

Today, I'm going to talk about my off-spec - the Tank. There's a lot of pissing and moaning going on about how badly Death Knight tanks are being treated in the upcoming patch, but I have news for those people - We. Needed. It.

When I first started tanking, I had some serious threat issues. In fact, that was a Death Knight's largest failing; the threat we put out wasn't nearly as strong as what a paladin or bear could dish out. My problem was that I couldn't even keep threat off some of our DPS. Whenever given a choice, I'd always take the secondary or tertiary mobs to tank so I could get a 'running head-start' on threat before the DPS started in.

Slight tangent, I think I have that problem nipped in the bud, now that my hit rating is very nearly max'd. I still have to find some more so I can swap out my aging TSD, but right now I'm in a good spot.

Back on track. I've always used my threat as an excuse as to why Death Knights were balanced against the other classes. However, that's no longer true. I may not be able to pull a mob off a paladin tank, but I don't seem to have issues keeping a boss glued on to me, even while our DPS are going full bore trying to beat a timer. So that's a moot point now.

So, with that little bit of anecdotal evidence squared away, let's compare my off set to a pair of raid geared tanks; one warrior, one paladin.


Unbuffed, I have:
34.6K Hit Points
26139 armour
24.87 dodge
17.30 parry
544 defense


The Warrior:
31.0K Hit Points
24413 armor
23.9 dodge
19.0 parry
29.0 block
*I assume 540 defense*

The Paladin:
33.7K Hit Points
24389 armour
25.03 dodge
18.61 parry
25.18 block
540 defense


So... right off the bat, I have more Hit Points and more armor than both of them, which are the #2 stats to work on when stacking Effective Health, which is best to do for hard hitting raid bosses. Parry and Dodge values are fairly even, though both of them are ahead by a few percentage points. And they have block, of course, but that's debateable on how good that is right now.

Now, the reason why those numbers are significant.

Those two people are raid geared tanks. The paladin has one piece of 213 gear, two pieces of 219 gear, the rest are all 226 items.

The warrior is a bit lower, having one trinket of the 200 iLevel, two pieces of 213 gear, two pieces of 219 gear, and the rest 226 (with the exception of a 232 weapon!).

Where as I, being my off-set, have four iLevel 200 items (two of them blue quality!), three pieces of 213 gear, four pieces of 219 gear (one with shield block stats, which are useless to me!), and the rest 226 pieces.

You ask me - "Anti, that's a lot of numbers and I'm not reading that. Get to the point." Okay, I will. My point can be summed up as thus:

My gear is inferior to our raid tanks, yet my stats are close, and in some cases, much higher, than theirs. That is a problem, and why we need the nerfs.

Now, whether we need to be hammered as hard as we are getting... that's another debate, for another day.

Being a procastinist certainly has it's downsides.

So, at 2:15am, I finished Midsummer Festival achievements on my DK. It should be noted that Midsummer despawned a mere one hour, forty-five minutes later. That's about as close to 'down-to-the-wire' as I care to get to.

Of course, it wasn't entirely my fault. Obviously I waited until the final night to finish it up (Cal, my shaman, had the achievements done very early on), but I had good reasoning! The Alliance capitals were ghost towns due to the late hour and holiday, making that particular part an easy snatch-n-grab.

However, I made a gross miscalculation in Ahune. I think to myself "Hey, an easy solo. My DK can solo elites 10 levels higher than him, how hard can he be?" Of course, I'm not nearly smart enough to realize that perhaps, just perhaps!, enemies made of frost could be immune to frost attacks. And obviously, I didn't bother to respec for the fight, so I got my ass handed to me quite handily. The problem is... you can only summon Ahune once a day, and this was the last day...

Luckily, Shadbow came to my rescue. Came right down to Slave Pens and helped me out. +5 respect points to you, Shad. They're hard to earn from me, but you certainly deserve those ones.

-------------------

Decided to embrace the Frost tree Dual Wield revamp. Figure it was easier to get a couple of 1 handed weapons than redo my entire armor set to make the switch to Blood or Unholy. That, and we're still often without an enhancement shaman, so we'd lose the raid haste bonus if I switched on those nights.

Mostly the decision came with the favour of Razorscale and dropping her appropriately itemized swords for me two weeks in a row. So I have a decent pair of weapons to make the switch with. They're a small downgrade (going from a 232 axe to a pair of 219 swords), but early reports are showing that since Dual Wield scales better than single weapons, it should even out at first and eventually become even better than what I do now. So I suppose that's good news.

Still not sure what enchants to use though. One of the benefits of dual wielding is that you can slap on two runeforges for double the goodies. Fallen Crusader on one weapon is a given; it's just too good to not use. The other weapon is either Fallen Crusader as well (goes from a ~75% uptime to roughly ~90%), Razorice (10% frost damage increase, but takes time to set up), or Cinderglacier (proc that gives 20% bonus to Frost and Shadow attack). I'm leaning towards Razorice, since there aren't a whole lot of fights I find myself frantically scrambling around.

Someone asked me if I felt that the axe was wasted now that I'm going dual wield. Of course not! I chose the axe for a good reason - with the high expertise and stamina on it, it's the third or fourth best tanking weapon, behind only the Gladiator PvP weapons. Since I do not feel like building a 3v3 team and working it up to 1850 just for that, the axe is a great alternative.

-----------------

My wrist is feeling much better. Some days are better than others (like today, it barely hurts at all), so I think it's nearly healed. There are still some fights where I can definetly feel the strain though, such as Hodir or Mimiron.

Oh, and saw Transformers 2 the other day. Not a great movie, but not bad by any means. Megan Fox is definetly the highlight of the film.

I hate hypocrites.

3.2 patch notes have been out for some time, and the PTR has been up for two days now with people confirming and finding new changes. Of course, Death Knights received a load of nerfs; a few of which are deserved, but most are just knee-jerked reactions caused by WoW's fucked up Arena system.

I'm not even going to touch the tank stuff. Not my main spec. However, my DPS spec is being destroyed, and that fucking pisses me off.

Comparing Death Knights, the pecking order for single-target damage is Blood --> Unholy --> Frost, with Dual Wield being practically worthless to play. Obviously there are some gimmick fights that alter those rankings, but they hold true in most cases.

The problem comes from the Arenas. Frost DKs have insane amounts of burst damage through their main attack, Frost Strike. With proper setup, a Frost DK can drop 4 attacks in 4 seconds, each with the ability to crit for roughly 10K damage, or more. That's obviusly a problem.

So what does Blizzard do? Nerf the fuck out of it, which of course has serious ramifications for PvE.

What I love most is the hypocrisy surounding the nerf though. I quote, from a post from Ghostcrawler:
We're already trying to have Blood, Frost and Unholy tanks and Blood, Frost and Unholy PvP builds. Also having Blood, Frost and Unholy dual-wield builds just creates an impossible matrix. You have to support Blood 2H PvP, and Unholy DW tanking, and Frost 2H PvE. It just gets crazy.

Frost might still do okay with 2H. We didn't specifically nerf their 2H abilities. We just gave them a talent to make DW more viable. I don't honestly know how 2H Frost dps stacks up in 3.2 at the moment.

Okay, so they say "We didn't really nerf 2H Frost", yet, let's take a look at the evidence, shall we? Remember that Frost Strike accounts for close to 50% of my overall damage.

1) Frost Strike now causes 55% weapon damage (down from 60%) plus 110.55 (down from 120.6) at max rank.
2) Frost Strike can now be dodged/blocked/parried.
3) Blood of the North increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. (Down from a maximum of 15%)
4) Sigil of the Vengeful Heart increases damage of Frost Strike by 115. (Down from 380).

Now, I recognize that this is still all on the PTR and subject to tweaking, but for the time being, I call fucking bullshit. All four of those combined is an extremely significant and unfair nerf to PvE Frost DPS. Note that we recieved only one very minor buff to a strike we barely use to compensate, and we're already the lowest of the three trees on base damage.

I'm being forced to either Dual Wield in Frost (which may or may not be okay, time will still tell on that), or respec to Blood or Unholy and redo my gear.

Thing I Believe.

This is an idea I shamelessly stole from elsewhere.

1) Knowledge should be gathered and hoarded like a dragon's treasure trove, but Wisdom should be given freely to anyone willing to accept it.

2) Anyone with a mustache but no beard is either;
A) A police officer
B) creepy
C) all of the above

3) Everyone deserves second chances, no matter what their past may contain. We may thrive on our successes, but we learn to succeed from our mistakes.

4) Any musical group with the word 'Brothers' in their name is either a gay boy band or a country band.

5) Most people in this world do too much talking and not enough listening.

6) Life is simply one giant game and you're eventually going to lose. Might as well aim for the high score before you cash out.

7) Anyone without a sense of humor is not a real human. Lighten up people.

8) The only people who say "Nice guys finish last" are the ones that finished last. Everyone else works for what they want.

9) If there is a God, then trying to understand the mysteries of His universe is the ultimate compliment to him.

10) Faith is a personal choice and should be kept that way. Trying to convert someone who isn't interested is insulting to them and embarrassing to you.

Nodes.

You'd think this would go without saying, but apparently it needs to be.

Don't fucking go herbing/mining while mobs are agro'd, or if the node is near a pack of trash.

Upgrades...

...suck.

Okay, that was harsh. Everyone loves upgrades. Especially at the lower tier levels, when you can swap gear in and out with impunity. More expertise? Great! More hit rating? Kickass. More strength/attack power? Everyone needs more of that.

A strange thing happens as you get more and better gear though. You have to start juggling stats, because you start hitting ceilings. I'm sure everyone sees this and it's old news to them... but as a healer, it was never something you had to worry about. There were four stats to focus on as a resto shaman; Spell power, MP/5, Crit, and Intelligence. None of those stats had a soft or hard cap on them (Okay, maybe crit, but that's so high as to be a non-issue) so you could stack to your heart's content. Obviously some stats were more desirable than others, but for the most part, and upgrade would always be an upgrade.

DPS and tanks are different though. Caps exist on some abilities, and you should always strive to hit those caps, but never go over them. Hit rating is the easiest example to use. For non-DWing melee DPS, the hit rating is 263. Go below that, and you suffer serious DPS losses due to misses. Go above that and you're wasting stat points that can be better spent elsewhere. It's a fine balance, but usually not to hard to adjust around with gems and enchants.

Until you get things like expertise thrown in.

And whether or not your only raiding shadow priest shows up, costing you that 3% spell hit.

And keeping a minimum crit rate to fuel your abilities.

I'm just lucky I don't have to worry about fuckin' Armor Penetration (yes, pun intended) as of yet.

The point of this rant? I have two, soon to be three, upgrades sitting in my inventory that I have no idea how to adjust around. It's because of expertise. Remember that axe I won off of Ignis? The Worldcarver. Now, don't get me wrong. I love that axe to death. It's a thing of pure, bestial, raw sexual beauty. I still get compliments from random people on it.

But it's holding me back, I think. Expertise rating of 87 on it alone. That's 10.67 expertise. Add another five because of my Orcishness. That's 15.67 expertise out of a soft cap of 26 from one item. 60% of my soft cap'd expertise comes from one solitary item. That's... a problem. Especially considering how much expertise the rest of Ulduar gear boasts, it's no wonder I'm over the cap and still climbing.

Right now I sit at 28 expertise - two points over the soft cap. If I put on my two most recent upgrades, I go up to 31. Others keep asking me if I'm ever going to use the Runed Orbs for my belt to be made, but I can't because that has even more expertise on it! Sigh.

The running joke is that I attack mobs from the front simply because I can without issues. At least I don't have DPS issues during Crazy Cat Lady. That's a bright side, yeah?

I should be thankful though. At least I have a great weapon. Six kill on 25-man Iron Council and Relg still hasn't seen his sword drop. He wants it bad. Every time the raid says "We're skipping IC tonight", I can hear his heart drop just a bit. Poor guy.


------------------------


On a non-WoW issue, my wrist is still healing. Some days are better than others. Today is a good day, hence the long post.

Oh, and Thornley is my new favourite artist of the month. Check his music out. I recommend 'All Fall Down', 'Another Memory', and 'So Far So Good.'

Withdrawals.

This must be what drug addicts go through during rehabilitation. The shaky hands, cold sweats, sleepness nights. Wondering just when you'll get your next fix. Hoping that your body will die so your soul won't feel any more pain.

Okay, so maybe I'm not that far gone and I'm a bit dramatic.

A couple weeks ago I messed up my left wrist pretty badly. Not sure how, just woke up one morning and it hurt like a some-bitch. I'm semi-convinced it has to do with my recent transition to playing the Death Knight; the amount of button mashing I do rose a significant amount when I gave up healing (Shaman healing is easy - I can do it from the mouse only if I'm particularly lazy).

Because of this, I've had to curb the amount of time spent on the computer. I found that I can stand about four hours or so before the pain bothers me too much. Luckily, this is enough time to get raids in, so I can still contribute to the progression effort, but doesn't leave much time for anything else, like dailies or farming. I fully admit I spend too much time playing the game, but having such a drastic change in your life style feels like a blow to the gut sometimes.

More later.

Just to settle the matter...

I didn't take Jewelcrafting to min/max. I took it because I thought it was an interesting profession I had not previously explored, and did not like the idea of pestering my friend(s) for cut gems whenever I swapped gear and stats around. I took it because at the time my Death Knight was an alt and I felt it was a good profession for an alt to have, to help support my main.

I belong to one of the few Jewelcrafters that fully support the Prismatic gem nerf. It costs me some stats, yes, but those are stats I shouldn't have been receiving anyways.

Again: I did not take Jewelcrafting to min/max my Death Knight.

For that, I took up Blacksmithing along side JCing. =P

Hey everyone, I'm a prick!

Apparently I'm a selfish bastard. Or, so one of my friends would have me believe. I'm also the only one who didn't know this. I probably shouldn't be quite so concerned about an off-hand remark that wasn't intended to insult, but considering that I've been mulling it over for the past five days or so, it's apparent that I'm not at all happy with this news.

The conversation was innocent enough. A Naxx10 group was being formed for alts/casuals. I was in a heroic group while it was forming. When I was finished with the heroic, I asked my friend how the group was going and she replied with an answer that implied it was a poor group and wouldn't do well. I expressed that I was sorry to hear that and that I wasn't there to help the group out. The rest of the conversation boiled down to her mentioning that I wasn't expected to go since I was very much like a mercenary with my toons and there was nothing there for me, so nobody considered even asking. It was also mentioned that this was a well-known fact amongst the guild, and that I'm pretty much only seen playing with my friends.

Well, duh? They're the only ones who ever ask. It's true that there are a very select few that I go out of my way to avoid, but it's not like I'm some anti-social prick who will only help those who help me in some way.

Maybe I'm making too much of it.

Or, maybe it's okay to be a selfish bastard. It's been working for me so far, yeah?

Fuck it.


*****************


Changing gears.

10 man Ulduar run went what I can best describe as 'mediocre.' We got down Flame Leviathan with one tower up fairly easily once people understood the mechanics a bit more. We still have work to do on rolling Pyrite though. Instead of sending up two people to deal with turrets, I'm thinking of using a rotating shift of two people, one at a time. The problem is our ranged DPS - they're almost all hunters. Rizzoe does decently (though we need to work on reloading Pyrite with her), but who'd be our second choice? Relg doesn't have enough ranged, even though he can stay up there practically indefinitely. I'd really like to get a solid mage or warlock that I can rely upon.

Took a couple tries at XT-002 Hardmode. I know it's doable for us. I think our biggest problem was dealing with the Life Sparks. Instead of having the tank taunt them, I'm thinking of having our ranged DPS utilize a /target Life Spark macro to assist in burning them down. XT-002 will be a night where we do nothing but work on it.

I'm just not sure if everyone in my group is motivated enough to put that much effort into those fights.

Of mice and raiders.

Being sick sucks. Most people already know this, but I felt that I should reiterate that point. I'm not normally a hypochondriac, but I honestly think I have the swine flu, a head cold, or cancer. I can't properly diagnose what's killing me due to the massive amounts of dying I'm accomplishing.

On the bright side, I've found that I can still raid while on a steady decline to the grave. My patience suffers, but of course I've never had much of that to begin with.

Another week spent in Ulduar 25. Wednesday's raid went rather smoothly, with only the normal complaints. We got a solid kill on Crazy Cat Lady (which is a pretty big accomplishment for us) and didn't have too many problems on the other bosses.

But Thursday was an odd night. Most of the night was spent banging our heads against Hodir. I fear that fight may be simply too technical for some of our raiders. There's a lot going on, requiring people stand in particular positions at all times. I honestly feel lucky being melee DPS on that fight - my job is to simply avoid falling icicles and whack the boss in the ass.

Ignis, a boss we thought we had on farm status, kicked our ass a couple times too. The tanks think he was stealth-buffed, I think people were simply tired, sick, and down after the failed attempts upon Hodir.

Which brings to me a thought - why do people get depressed when we fail upon a boss? I can understand frustration when we fail to the same things multiple times. For instance, if a certain warlock can't live past the first Flash Freeze on Hodir because s/he doesn't know what a 'mound of snow' means. Or we hit the enrage because all our ranged DPS keep dying early and nobody is applying the singed stack.

I figure so long as we wipe in new and interesting ways, then we're making progress. Eventually that warlock will understand how to survive Flash Freeze. People will get better at living through raid damage. Sooner or later we'll down the boss, collect loots, and move on to the next.

I bring this point up because I want to take my 10 man group into a few Hard-Mode kills. I know for a fact that we are going to wipe. In fact, we will probably wipe on purpose a few times. I fully intend on sacrificing people, including myself, for the sole reason of seeing what happens. If people are going to get depressed because of that... then perhaps pushing for Hard-Modes isn't for them.

Don't get me wrong - I don't expect us to be downing Hard-Mode bosses within the next few weeks. But I at least want people to get a taste of what's to come. If that involves wiping the raid a couple of times, then so be it. It's just fake gold in a game, and so long as we keep up good spirits while doing it, then I say it's a win in our book.

Ulduar 10 mans

Glye opened up 10 man Ulduar's to PUGs. This means I can start putting together the best team to down 10 man Hard Mode bosses.

My first thought - "This can work; gear upgrades on par of Ulduar 25 (and in some cases, better itemized), and doing something challenging and succeeding is always great."

Then I think - "Fuck, do I really want to try to herd people into another raid per week? Possibly two?"

I'm convinced that the reason my Glory of the Raider groups failed in Naxx was because people became disinterested. We already have a pretty tight raid schedule for a 'casual raiding guild', and adding in another night is too much for some people. It sucks because those people are also our top players.

Not to mention that Ulduar Raider Glory is significantly harder than the Naxx one. At least there's no Undying-like achievement to go for, though. I wonder how much motivation the carrot of a Rusted Proto Drake will get me.

If we did go for it, though, I'd rather start as early as possible. We were side-blinded by the announcement that the Naxx Glory achievement reward would be removed, and we weren't close to finishing it.

I'll ask around, I think. Just have to make sure people understand just how hard it will be, but the rewards will be worth the time invested. It's going to be a lot of stress, but I'll admit - I love hearing the exhultations when we down a hard boss for the first time.

Continuing that train of thought... since I'd be going as Anti, the group is down one healer and up one DPS. Rizzoe offered to heal, but I think I'd rather her be Shadow (I'm addicted to 3% spell hit). DPS requirements will be tight, and she's invaluable in that role. And in the fights we need three healers, she has dual spec.

So... that leaves me in the tough spot of having to boot out a current DPS in favour of another healer. Woofa fits that bill, since his schedule has been erratic lately. As for whom to bring in... I'm stuck with a tough choice. Kire and Nicci are both excellent candidates.

Kire brings shaman buffs that we lost from Cal, including the very important Bloodlust. However, his schedule may preclude him from raiding with us; I know his wife already doesn't like him raiding as often as he does.

Nicci is an excellent healer, and brings the second pally buff (might for DPS, regen for casters), allowing Kings to be placed on everyone, rather than picking and choosing. That may work out to more DPS than just what a Bloodlust brings, but not sure.

Maybe I will try to work in a rotation with the two.

Ugg, this turned out way longer than I was expecting it to.

A good night.

Wednesday night. I love Wednesday nights, since it's raid night. Our first night of a reset, so instances are all fresh and new. A clean slate.

At the beginning of the night, I was all set to rant and rave. Little things irritating me and getting under my skin. I think I may still do so, but I'll keep it short, and I promise that this update will end on a good note.

Flame Leviathan. I don't know why some people have such a hard on for doing this boss on Hard-Mode, but the simple fact is that if people can't get over themselves and figure out the most basic shit like "Who's being catapulted for turrets" and "Siege Engine gunners shoot down the Pyrite carriers so that the Demolishers can rearm", we have absolutely no business even attempting a partial hard mode. Tonight we killed Flame Leviathan from 100% to 0% with not a single person being launched to the turrets. Why? Because people were too fuckin' concerned about getting their Three Car Garage achievements.

A healer hopped into my Demolisher. I sent him/her a tell, saying - "Hey, so you're healing the turret crew?" To my surprise, this healer, who's a freakin' officer, goes "No, I'm just here to gun."

Fuckin' A, people. You think we're up for Hard Mode when people are still being that selfish five weeks in?

Movin' on. This next part will be short.

*Deep breath.*

We've been doing this for five weeks now. You should know what portals to take. Here's a hint - it's usually the one on the bottom of the list!

I can understand if someone has only been to Ulduar a couple times, or is coming in mid-clear. But sometimes I hear the same people, week after week, ask the same question every damn night - "Which portal do I take?"

The answer is always, with only one exception - "The one at the fuckin' bottom of the list!" (That exception, BTW, is if you've cleared Auriaya and you're not going to Freya)


***************

So, with that out my system.

Once we managed to get past the ugly kill of Flame Leviathan, tonight was a very excellent night for me.

We started with Ignis. Since our main tank was out and our backup tank was having connection issues, I was brought in as the off tank. I was then promptly assigned to holding onto Ignis himself. Seriously; that is a butt load of pressure. I'm not sure I could be a main tank - the occassional tanking scenario (like tonight) was a lot of fun, but as the tank, even one small mistake and you could wipe the raid. Even as a healer I didn't have that much stress.

Even though I died on Ignis at 3%, we downed him without really any incidents. He dropped his axe (Worldcarver), and Relg being the kickass dude that he is passed it to me. So I suppose all that bitching about the RNG in my last blog was a bit premature.

We then went on to Razorscale. DPS was a bit light, but that was attributed to lag, which they can't help. We did get her down, but it was a bit ugly.

Finally, we ended up at XT-002. Lag again caused us a lot of issues and we wiped a few times, but eventually pulled it together and took it down. The Frost Strike/Death Coil sigil dropped, and to my surprise, Relg passed it to me, the only other DK in the raid. Stunned is about the most appropriate word for what I felt.

I'm pretty sure I owe Relg a beer. If you ever read this Relg, you've got one on me.

So, in one night, two very huge upgrades. As a comparison, my Frost Strikes hit for about 8 to 9K damage in a 25 man, fully buffed raid setting. After finishing my enchant and gem swaps, they now hit for up to 10K on a target dummy with only Horn of Winter up. I'm also seeing higher gains from a 2 disease rotation in Unholy Presence, which opens up a lot of possibilities.

I can not wait to try them out in a proper raid setting. Think I'm stuck tanking again tomorrow, though.


*************


In non-WoW news, I went to see Star Trek today. Kick ass movie, well worth the price of admission. There are significant plot issues, but so long as you can remember that this is Star Trek and can look past the completely pointless villian, then it's a great movie.