August 2010

Pets – Are they REALLY Worth It?

stargrace August 31, 2010 3Comments

This post is for Abapad (or as I call him Abba Pad) and Mezzthak. I love you guys, I really do – but we have to talk. You (that’s right, this time it was you not me) almost caused my group to wipe in the wee hours of the morning while I was doing a random dungeon. I’m starting to wonder (after being called all sorts of not-so-pleasant-names) if you’re worth having around.

I have two major issues with warlock pets. Number one, when I jump off of a ledge in a dungeon they decide that the best way to reach me is to run right through an encounter of mobs that we’ve just avoided – thus pulling them right to the group. How helpful (this is where the name calling came into play). This is incredibly annoying because it’s rare that a group takes a straight and flat path through a dungeon. Especially if they’ve been there once or twice. Not to mention there are some zones that just encourage you to drop down.

Unless I install some sort of shock system that reminds me to un-summon my pet every time I look at a ledge, I doubt I’ll avoid wiping my group any time soon.

The other annoyance is that in order to summon my pets (the majority of them at least) I need a soulshard. I keep 32 of these on me pretty constantly. I use them for pets, spells, soulstones, healthstones, etc. Every time I lose a pet, I need another one to call in the reinforcements. Losing pets from dumb things like me jumping off of a ledge – or from me falling down a big dark hole like a few instances have, is frustrating.

The rest of my small list of grievances are pretty typical. I remember to set my pet to passive (just like EQ2) so I don’t go inadvertently pulling something I shouldn’t be, or have my pet run after something I’d rather it not run after. If that one little glitch about jumping after me worked, things would be so much easier. So what do you say, abapad, mezzthak? Can we work something out here..

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Warlock Particulars

stargrace August 30, 2010 2Comments

After flying through 1-69 (almost literally, it took me less then a week) 70+ just crawls by. I’m wearing two pieces of heirloom gear which grants me a 20% bonus to kills and quests, but things still seem to have slowed an incredible amount. Expected I suppose, no one wants their game content to be THAT quick. I’ve been aiming for a level a day on the warlock and so far it’s working out pretty well. She’s sitting at a comfortable level 73, hopefully by the end of today that will be 74. I experimented with my talents a little yesterday, trying to find something comfortable to use. I’ve chosen to dual spec for some pretty obvious reasons. I have the destruction spec for single target dps and moderate AoE dps. This is great for questing, or moderate dps in instances. Then I’ve also got an affliction spec, which is not *really* affliction because it’s 38/33/0 – it’s pretty balanced. This spec focuses on me spamming seed of destruction, and works fantastic for AoE encounters. My highest parse at 72 was a little over 7k, and in instances this is great – except not EVERY encounter is a group encounter. On single targets my dps is abysmal at best. Mages still out-parse me right now, but I’m looking for ways to change that.Why do I care about any of this? Well I take pride in my character, and doing as well as I possibly can. I know everyone plays their own way but I like to think I know my class for whatever game I happen to be playing to the best of my ability.

I was discouraged by the slow moving xp bar, so I contemplated moving back towards the shaman, or even leveling up that druid or paladin I’ve started – but in the end I decided I would simply tough it out on the warlock. After all I really enjoy the class, just not the grind to ‘end game’.

I also managed to get my crafting (engineering in the warlock’s case) to 200! I’ve decided to go the rout of Goblin Engineer, and I’m looking forward to some of the neat items they can make.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend no matter where you found yourself! Happy gaming!

Lets Talk Bosses

stargrace August 29, 2010 6Comments

In my previous post, Dril asked: “do the other games have bosses as complex as WoW? And do you think the game would be a lot harder without DBM?” – I gave this a little thought before deciding to answer. I’m going to start backwards. I am still really new to DBM, I leveled my priest up without even knowing that this existed, and while some instances *were* difficult, they were not impossible. DBM (deadly boss mod for those who are not familiar with the terminology) announces things both in text and in the center of your screen. Helpful things like when an encounter reflects, when charm is about to go off, count downs to explosions, etc. I don’t really think the game is that much harder without it. You still need to react, with or without. Knowing when to react is certainly nice but even if YOU know what to do, chances are your 4 other group mates do not and that still makes for a difficult instance. Since gear also plays a role it doesn’t matter how well you react, if you’re not geared well enough for whatever is about to happen next, you’re still going to die.

As far as other games – yes. They certainly do. There are also mods that work like DBM but are not quite as revealing. One that comes to mind is ACT for EQ2. This allows you to manually input timers for mob encounters, so if you’re fighting something that’s going to dot you every 50 seconds if you’re more then 50m away, you’ll know to move in. These are not used very often in instances, but they’re incredibly valuable in raids.

Every game has ‘complex’ encounters in their own rights. In EQ2 (since that’s what I’m most familiar with) every ‘boss’ has it’s own set of rules. In Sentinel’s Fate there are encounters where every time the NPC says their text speech they become rooted and you must move out of their range or you’ll get a curse that will kill you in three ticks. At a certain percent you’ve got to activate a machine in the room or else they become immune. Other encounters fear, some reflect, but the GAME gives you a good indication of when these things are going to happen (text, a graphic, etc) so as long as you’re watching and paying attention, you can prepare yourself for it. In WoW I find that the game doesn’t give me a good indication at all of what is going to happen next. Or maybe I’m so busy jumping around trying to avoid fire, goo, poison etc that I can’t divert my attention any further.

Hope that answers the question for you Dril! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Alts? I’ve Got a Few

stargrace August 27, 2010 1Comment

It never fails. One character reaches level 70 (warlock) and then I get an itch to play an alt. I’m not sure why this happens, but it does. Last night I spent the evening getting my shaman from 65 to 68 – and it was so much fun. With deadly boss mod encounters are much easier especially for a healer. I find the shaman a little easier to play then the priest, and I’m debating whether or not I want to try to get her to level 80 and continue healing. I know, after I JUST said that I wanted to play my warlock. I’m always so fickle.

I did reach 68, which means again I can start wrath content, and I can fly in Northrend (thanks to the level 80 I already have). So far my duel spec is treating me well. I’ve got a healing spec and I’ve gone down the spell casting spec for damage when I’m out and about soloing. I thought of going down the melee version but I’m really reluctant to have to carry around two sets of gear and weapons. At least with the caster damage I can wear my healing gear.

It’s Friday! I’m off to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and enjoy the sunshine.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

70 and Beyond

stargrace August 26, 2010 1Comment

I did it. I have my second level 70+ character in game after uh, well less then a week. Of course it was also a week of me using a recruit-a-friend account up to level 60, but I’m happy to be here none the less. I jumped into a few Wrath dungeons right away and immediately fell in love with deadly boss mod all over again. It was nice to know exactly what was going on in the encounters where as before I could only generalize.

I also decided to move my shaman over to the new server. I’ve always hated having characters spread out, and this time was no exception. The shaman is level 65 which was required in order for me to get my crafting to 450. She’s my jeweler / inscription worker, and it’s nice to be able to make my own glyphs as well as my own gems for sockets. Plus the shaman is just plain fun.

The leveling slows down now and comes mostly from questing rather then dungeon grinding. Not a big deal, I’ve barely touched quests since I created the character. As a change of pace I also decided I wanted to learn how to tank – so I created a paladin. I contemplated a DK but it seems like everyone and their dog has one (although the same could be said for the paladin as well). Whether I will be any good at it I’m not sure, but it was worth a shot I figured. Then I will understand the game from all three perspectives, healer, dps, and tank. Is this important? Not really, but it’s sort of fun.

When I hit 70 my little warlock got a spell called Seed of Destruction which is now my new best friend. I decided to purchase dual spec, and I have one for AoE damage (which is handy in instances, although my single target dps is quite shoddy) and then I have one for questing, which is focused on single target damage. My parse jumped from roughly 800 to 4000 in groups of three or more and I couldn’t be happier. Of course that also comes from me being level 70 now and the mobs being slightly easier to hit.

I’m already starting to save up my tokens for gear. I make sure at these lower levels when the instances are easier that I’m doing my random for the day. It helps that I have an 80 warrior who can queue up with me and thus make tanking a LOT easier (and safer) for me to dps to my little hearts content.

While I don’t personally feel that WoW is as complicated as some other games out there, I also don’t feel that it’s exactly easy-mode either. You still have to pay attention, and you still have to learn tactics for encounters. I think perhaps the ‘cartoony’ (as I have heard others call it) graphics of the game mislead others into thinking that it’s simpler then the games they’re already playing. Aspects of it are certainly easier (like crafting, for one) but dps is dps. It’s spamming the same buttons over and over to maximize your damage, and doing whatever is required per encounter. That doesn’t really change too much no matter what you’re playing.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!