WoW

Getting Over My LFD Fears

stargrace August 24, 2010 1Comment

The warlock is 66, and working her way through Burning Crusade. I like this expansion better then the basic game, but less then wrath. I’m eager to hit 68 which is when I’ll be able to head to Wrath areas finally, and since I’ve got a level 80 already I can purchase the heirloom flying manual and fly from the start. After 5+ years I am finally over my fear of WoW PUGs (pick up groups, for those who are not gamers). Just because I’m playing a DPS role doesn’t mean that I’m exactly guilt free. It’s my job to make sure that the healer has a soul stone on them at all times, I also have to watch how much DPS I do so that I don’t gank. I need to make sure I don’t accidentally wipe the group by doing any number of random dumb accidental things. It’s not as involved as a healer or a tank, but I’ve still got things to do.

Now that I’m getting over my fear of running the LFD tool, I think with time I’ll feel more confident playing the healer in instances as well. Having two drastically different classes at level 80 is a nice feeling (even though I’m not 80 yet, it’ll come). When I’m ready for a little excitement I’ll switch back to the healer. Maybe once I learn the zones on a DPS class I’ll feel more confident about doing them on the priest.

Ah yes. Forgot about that EVE post I wanted to do! That’s next on my list..

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

A Different Path

stargrace August 22, 2010 5Comments

It never fails. When I start playing an MMO I typically always role the same types of characters. Healers, or support classes. This would be why I have a plethora of healers on EQ2, EQ, LotRo, and yes, even WoW (80 priest). As it would happen though I learned an important lesson this week. It’s ok NOT to play your ‘usual’ class in a game. When I was playing WoW as my priest I was constantly stressed. I found healing people (mostly people who had no idea what they were doing and were very literally all over the place) difficult, I found myself questioning my ability as a healer because I would take the blame for everyone else’ actions. This is the wrong way to play WoW. If you play this way you will slowly drive yourself crazy (as I found out). It made LFD one of the single most stressful things I’d ever done. This week I decided ‘it’s a game.’ If you’re not having FUN playing a game, and it’s work – why are you playing it?!

I like WoW. I like how casual it can be while I’m playing other games like EVE. I like that I can log in and almost instantly be doing something instead of having to wait around for hours. What I didn’t like, was playing my priest. I decided to start over with a ‘new’ main since I was starting over on a new server already. I have played various characters through to the 20’s before, but had never gotten a warlock past that magical number, even though it was one class that I had the most interest in.

For the past three days I spent almost all of my in game time working on this warlock. She’s now level 61, and I have to admit – I simply love the class. I mean, in that WOW look how FUN the game can be way. It wasn’t WoW’s fault that I wasn’t enjoying my stay. It was all about me playing the wrong class.

I looked up some warlock mods. Necrosis is now my new best friend. I also got deadly boss mod, which I wonder how I survived without. Suddenly the game is not this stressful horrible place that I spend my time but it’s actually FUN. Who would have thought. In order to level the warlock so fast I decided to get a recruit-a-friend account between myself. I paid $20 for the base game and gained 10 days of burning crusade which allowed me to create a blood elf and level through the content quite fast. The benefit of a recruit-a-friend account (aside from the 300% bonus in experience which is simply insane) is that the RAF can ‘grant’ your main veteran account levels. For every 2 levels they gain, they can grant one (so long as the veteran character is not higher level). This works up to level 60. Not only do I have this new warlock that I enjoy very much, but I can level another character to 30 and grant them enough levels to reach 60. I haven’t decided what character I want to do this with yet. I’m thinking shaman or perhaps paladin.

It’s nice to know the game is still fun to me, now that I’m playing the right class.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Heirloom Gear

stargrace July 15, 2010 1Comment

To the left is my first piece of heirloom gear – passed down to my baby warlock. This took 40 tokens of heroism to purchase, and while I know I could (should?) have used them to purchase gear for my “main” I decided that I spend enough time on my alts to warrant splurging a little on them too. Plus, I’m not exactly in a huge rush to join the gear race that begins at 80.

I like heirloom gear. I think that the ability to speed up the leveling process for alts is a great thing. Once you’ve already played through once there’s no reason why it should take longer then necessary to level again except to learn the new class. Plus it’s nice to be ‘uber’ for that tier.

I also completed my first heroic, Utgarde Keep. It doesn’t differ that much from the regular version, mobs hit harder but that was about it. The group consisted of myself (priest) two hunters, a rogue, and the warrior tank. Nothing of note dropped, but again it wasn’t a bad instance. Two group mates did die on random encounters, but there were no wipes and I think I did fairly well.

I also did The Pit of Saron, which was a lot of fun. Having never been there before I had some help to figure out the encounters. The bosses were a lot easier then I had thought they would be. I also won a really nice robe that I was happy to get. This unlocked the final instance, the most difficult one (or so I have heard). Calreth, Manos, and I also grouped together to do a random which sent us to the lower version of Utgarde Keep (since Calreth is currently level 71). Manos and I received a lot of praise for our healing and tanking, which was probably the first time I’ve ever gotten such a compliment. It was nice.

I’m also in the Cataclysm beta, so expect some postings on that to follow before too long. I’ve copied over a few characters, and created a warlock just to see how they work after the expansion.

Happy Friday, and happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Dungeon Shenanigans

stargrace July 14, 2010 3Comments

Last night I headed in for two random dungeons along with two guild mates, and we had a blast. One of them is a little lower level, so we weren’t doing anything incredibly difficult, and he got a few gear upgrades which is always nice. Afterward myself and the 80 warrior decided to play in some ‘big kid’ zones, where I experienced one of the most frustrating things in LFD yet.

As a tank and healer combo there’s rarely ever a wait when it comes to LFD – even when selecting the dungeon. We decided to head to The Forge of Souls, which is not that difficult – unless you end up in a grp like I did. The first give away that it was not going to be a particularly pleasant trip was that the three other DPS were all from the same guild. So that left myself (priest) and my guild mate (tank) unable to vote anyone out since they certainly were not going to vote their own guild mates out of a group. Now, you can hate on gearscore all you want but one thing it DOES tell me, is how difficult of a time I’m going to have healing in a zone. That is not to say that someone with a higher GS is going to perform better (because that has certainly not been the case) but it DOES tell me how easy group members are going to DIE when they get hit with things.

The second give away was that one of the three DPS was an incredibly under geared warrior, who had never been there before. The two guild mates were explaining the fights as they went along. No problem, it was my first time too after all.

What I had a problem with was that they won every single piece of plate gear, and did 400 dps for the zone which is an abysmal amount for a DPS warrior. I really dislike gearing up other people’s characters like that. Run the instance with your own tank and healer instead of queuing with nothing but DPS from your guild. My heal parse was 2k for the zone which is a lot higher then it typically is when I’m running an instance. I felt as though I was healing a group of cloth wearing group mates instead of a rogue warrior, and shaman.

The instance was completed without any deaths, which is always good in my opinion but it was incredibly stressful to heal. I went through a lot of mana potions and while I pride myself on having done a good job, it still irks me that in instances it’s only too easy to ‘pull’ an under geared badly played character through so that they can obtain loot. I know, I could have left (along with the warrior) but in most situations I’d rather just tough it out. It was also nearing 2am and I just wanted to get the instance done with and move on.

Aside from the group aspect, the dungeon was fun. It unlocks another dungeon, and then that one unlocks a third. I should be saving up emblems for some gear for myself, but since I’m always bouncing around characters I’ll probably use it for the alt army and get heirloom instead. We’ll see.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!