Saturday, January 24, 2015

Leveling heals.....as heals!

As some of you may recall in the past I have mentioned that I have become something of a toon/class purist.  When dual spec'ing became nothing more than the press of a button I used this to create, for me, a spec for PVE and a spec for PVP.   Trouble is I found that as the toon leveled one of the spec's went on to be used less and when I did try to play it often fell WAY short on doing so with any degree of proficiency.

What a grand excuse to roll MORE TOONS....

Er, um, so the conundrum created as a result of this is....I have to level my healers as healers. 

One of my more recently created toons is Aelona:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/norgannon/Aelona/simple

She is my first Mistweaver monk, it is a toon I bonded with fairly immediately (always a good thing!), and I was able to level her from 90-100 as a Mistweaver!  Now the kick here is that the class has the Stance of The Spirited Crane.  The stance boots DPS but still allows for a decent amount of heals.  There is no equivalent for the other healers.  Alas, I found that trying to take on mobs of the same level took way too long and if there were two or three of them it ended up being much too much of a close call.

The best thing for me was to level her to 93 using LFG and BG's and THEN tackle questing. 

Frankly it kind of sucks!

The first toon a leveled was a Blood DK, as a Blood DK.  Slower killing, but she wudnt going to die no matters!  Second was Aelona........way to long to kill anything not at least two levels below her, but it also takes too long for mobs to die!  Next has been my Fury Warrior, Zyrranelda....who kills anything in three seconds or less.

The next healer I am working on is my Tauren Druid Klowd.  Klowd  Ive gotten about half way through the starting event....and lemme tell ya...killing anything is a TOTAL event.  Its starts with a Wrath at the farthest possible range followed by a Starfire, kitty form shread, but not before applying a Rejuv, and dropping a shroom, and the killing what ever while I am in bear form....I am tired after typing all that.

So lets see how it goes, shall we?  Anyone else doing anything like this or am a I a true snowflake...."CHARLIE....."

Love and hugs
K

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Its been too long!!!

Helooo all my World of Warcraft friends!! So, as my Seasonal Affective Disorder fades, and my comfort level with my writing ability starts to renew itself I have decided to post a little post about my thoughts of Warlords of Draenor. 

I feel there are a few things I must divulge first!!

1) For those of you who may not know my gaming history started with WOW back in 2008.  I Played the original Diablo, but never "On-line".

2) I was never into computers.

3) I was never much into computer games.  (Okay,okay....Tomb Raider, Medi Evil, Kingdom Hearts and Twisted Metal, DID have me up until dawn 15 years ago, but I never knew there was a community of players out there!)

Why did I want to tell you these things?  I don't even remember now.  Anyway, my regular schedule has me off work on Friday and Saturday.  I did stay up and was able to get a little of the game in on launch day, but my plan was to keep away until I got home around 1:00 am on Friday and then go balls to the wall for as much as I could. 

I love the excitement of an expansion.  All the chatter on podcasts....people yapping about it in trade....all the talk about what may or may not happen!  For being alone in my room the whole thing provides a significant level of thrill, and WOD delivered.  Yes there were issues, yes there was the DDOS thing, yes the Tannan jungle is as of yet unopened, and yes we still cant fly, but most of us expected these kind of things going in.

Visually....its just stunning....STUNNING!!  It took me about a week to get my first toon to 100.  I had no plans to rush, I wanted to see, read, and just fucking DO an expansion for the first time, and for the most part I was able to do as I wanted, and there were a few time I hit such a wonderful WOW "ZONE", that hours would have gone bye and I hadn't even noticed.  However there were times I literally had to stop, look and catch my breath.

(((Zone in the above refers to a Zen kind of thing....not an actual zone in the game)))

Garrisons were the new shiny flavor of the day.  Not my thing personally (although I do like them), some of the people I play with have become full fledged "garrisonites", putting as much thought into plots, missions, followers and resources as any top tear raider puts into raiding.

Others are all about the treasure chests!  Also not my thing personally (although I am not above squealing with high pitched glee when I happen upon a random pile/box/stash of goods, I certainly don't look for them, and have removed HandyNotes from my add-ons (TOO much clutter on my map!!).  I find I like when I stumble upon that stuff anyway!

Professions, professions, professions......they have never exactly been something I could say I was good at.   My brain just does not seem geared to be able to absorb, and become proficient with them.  I don't think I am that dim, as far as being dim goes, but I think its one of the things my brain finds boring, as it would much rather being doing anything else.   I feel the same way about playing the auction house, there are people who can do it in their sleep, I aint one of them!

I do love the new five mans...OH MY GOD....do I love the new five mans.   I have started doing them on all my level 90's and the actual dungeons have delivered just about every time.  I am enjoying the fact that there is a degree of know-how required and you cant just blast your way through them.  I love the artwork, I love how loot works now, just love love love them!!

And my sweet sweet PVP.  To know me is to know that I am not at all a competitive person...like at all!  And my upbringing is such that when I am loosing I tend to kick and scream like a spider eating man bitch...but NOTHING else I do thrills me as much as kicking ass in a BG.  I want to say that PVP changes are the cause, but I really think that my DK is just so AWSOME (PS...if you are into PVP and do not have a "Gladiators Sanctum"  you are seriously clipping your own wings), but I will admit that the whole experience feels ironed (no pun intended) out some how.  Although....the South Shore BG was no good if you are melee, and low level hunters in a BG just wreck the whole experience for everyone else, it is still my favorite part of WOW, and its likely to be until the end of my days.

What I don't like about WOD is the same thing that I don't like in any of the MMO's I have played.  I don't expect it to be too easy as too easy is boring, but the other thing I find boring is realizing an objective is on above or below me, and trying to FIND the way to the objective is not entirely clear.   Even typing this out my face is getting warm.   There have been times when I simply can not find the path, or entrance or whatever it is I need to find to get me where ever it was I needed to go, and it just was no fun at all....and that all ima going to say about that!!   (I'm not in the mood to be all aggie about it!!!)

Is it my favorite expansion?  No.  My favorite was actually Cataclysm.

I think there is a lot to be said for the leveling experience and I just don't think leveling is considered important any more.   I can imagine that re-doing everything for an expansion would be impossible but I think tweeking "Old world" stuff could be warranted, and could be a lot of fun.

So in closing it is a wonderful, beautiful, lore-full, expansion, with games in side the game for all kinds of game players and skill levels.   It still has some kinks (and I think my computer is getting old) but its a home run for sure!!!

I swear I am not a blizzard fan boy!!

Love you all....peace and stuff.

K




Monday, May 26, 2014

The add-on/cheating line

Yes, its been nearly two months since I last published.  And to be honest the thought of even looking at this thing hasn't even crossed my mind.  This is partly due to issues in real life.  Although I often fantasize about being the "emo artist", writing while I am depressed or unhappy is more work then I want it to be, so I don't, cuz I am sure no one wants to read that kind of thing anyway!

So, what shall I talk about? 

Here is one subject that always seems to raise a voice or two:  When do add-ons become cheating?

Now I am SO not being all mother superior here, and there have been times and places when and edge was made available to me and I took advantage of it, and afterwards never felt very good about it.  These times were when I was horribly stuck on something like Tomb Raider or Spyro the Dragon, or Medievil, or Kingdom Hearts.  I remember trying over and over and over to kill Ursula in KH and after weeks consulted a cheat guide, beat her, and then didn't go back to the game for a while because I felt guilty.

The one add-on that I did stop using (remember, this is my own opinion, and everyone else is free to think or use what ever they want), was spell-flash.  There was something about it telling me what I should do next that gave me that same feeling that I got when I started eating my Thanksgiving dinner before someone started saying grace. Now, to be my own Devils advocate here, one could argue that Deadly Boss Mods tells me when to move or when to taunt, so......

I dunno!  Is this a huge issue that is going to break the game...of course not.  I find I have something of an issue with mods like: Healers have to die m(more because I play lots of healers) or any add-on that reads and broadcasts MY cool downs to another player...those piss me off.

Just a wondering here!

Best and love to you all!! 

Kurly

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Have I become I surly WOW player?

Rage quitting!

It has become a daily occurrence in my WOW experience, and its pissing me off!  LOL...okay....I couldn't resist that....but its sadly kind of the truth.

I cant think of the last time I didn't log on only to experience some kind of MMO disgust that had me leaving whatever group or BG I was in after saying something utterly sinful in chat.  Especially when the Demonology Warlock, who, has been afk for half of a dungeon started plowing ahead me (I was tanking) and pulling agro from all the mobs.  Frankly I don't care what they say on World of Warcast, blowing off group protocol is rude, and not fun for me.  So I called the player a dick and left the group. (I still live Mike and Eric, but that episode of Warcast had me red in the cheeks for hours!)

Sigh.  This is just not me....well maybe a little me.  I do have a reputation for being slightly dramatic and very off color, but does that excuse me yelling in vent last week when 13 people were telling me the best way do the crawler mines while tanking that boss to "SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR FIVE MINUTES!!"  Yes, I said (or rather yelled this) to 11 other people in vent. 

I am wondering if I am feeling the first effects of burnout, and this upsets me.  When I realized that the existing five mans where going to be the only five mans available to me, I knew I was in trouble.  Although I love the Scarlett Monastery instances any of the Pandaria dungeons have been over played SO much that I don't even bother queuing for them, and have toons I want to level. 

I don't want to be this angry WOW player.  I love WOW, there are so so many reasons I love WOW, but if I am being honest I have to say that I feel like Blizzard set me adrift about five months ago, and adrift I shall be for another five.

Anywho.,..thanks for listening.

Love your guts!

Kurl

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Surviving Boost-gate!

Since the option to boost a toon up to 90 has been available for a while now, its no surprise that I've been hearing comments about it in just about every available medium.  Podcasts, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter have been alight with tales of woe ranging from Boost remorse to folks who are more than happy to humiliate an obviously under-geared, less experienced player by calling them "boobs" (boosted + noob).

Oh brother!

After warlocks went through their class change a while back, I was having THE hardest time making the new skills and talents make any sense.  Out of sheer frustration and spite, I removed all of my spell and ability icons from their boxes on my UI, logged off and sat in the dark pouting for a while.  After my tantrum I shamefacedly logged back in and realized I had a great opportunity at totally changing how I played that toon.

What I am going to offer here is my suggestion to someone who has boosted a toon to level 90.  Mind you I am no genius and my suggestion may sound crazy silly, but here 'tis any way.

Each class has abilities that:
Buff themselves
Debuff the enemy to make them weaker or more sensitive to your damage.
Are direct damage or damage over time abilities.
Are crowd control
Perform an action that temporarily increases damage done by normal abilities.
Defensive abilities.

What worked for me was grouping abilities with the same or similar function together in groups on my action bars starting with the abilities that debuff the enemy (personal buffs go on my inside right column bar) followed by the abilities that do the temporary increasing of the damage, followed by damaging abilities.  CC's and defensive abilities I put in the original UI boxes.

Certainly not rocket science and I may be totally embarrassing my self as this could be how people have been doing it all along.  I had to laugh out of the other side of my face the other day when I was going through my Enhancement shimmy's abilities and found something I wasn't using and didn't even know was there!

Also, its a good idea to read through your passive skills.  They may help you figure out a better rotation!

So that's is for now. 

Thank for playing.....please, come back again soon....it gets lonely up here sometimes.

Peace....M




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Boost-Shmoost!!

You know you are an altaholic when:  The process by which you decide which toon you are going to boost to level 90 leaves you anxious and sweaty, and is eventually left up to something other than your decision!

This was me the other night folks!!  I was going to wait, ride it out....decide on my own time...blah blah....but then my OCD kicked in the mere knowledge that that new amazing ICON was floating on my selection screen was making me nuts!!

I knew I would NOT be boosting any Alliance toons as I have 10 Alli 90's that I spend most of my time on.....so nish nish on that!

I also knew I would not be leveling any of my Horde toon on Ysondre, where be my level two, female toons only guild I call Living Dead Gurls.   That is my little guild that I plan to try and focus more on leveling at some point and all of the guild rep you get from questing will work out better on lower level toons.

So that left Proudmoore and Earthen Ring! 

So of course...it was CAW....My NEW level 90 Panda Prot Warrior who can tank for the guild!!!

WOO HOO!!

XOXO
Kurly

Sunday, March 9, 2014

BORING!!

Hey folks....having a bit of a blog lull!  Ive been sitting here looking at the blank page trying to come up with SOMETHING to blog about for the last three days.

I know there is a lot of news on the horizon!  I am very excited to hear about what is going on with CC, and anti CC for PVP.

I am dieing to see what they do with curbing "Spell/Ability bloat" and what is getting removed or combined.

I wonder how many five mans we are going to have and what the item squish is going to look like.

I am wondering if I should roll a draenei or is the experience going to be the same no matter what race you run through it?

Is Sylvanis on her way out? 

Are we ever going to see a new class or race, co-operation between the factions, or a third faction?

Is there a way to make it so I can eat whatever I want and then.......wha, who, oh, crap...sorry.

So this is it for now, sorry for the lame filler blog!

Love you all!

K