I had been toying with the idea of self hosting so I could do cool things like use wowhead tooltips in my links and experiment with more control over my blog.
Henceforth I shall be posting at thunderspank.com where you can come for your fill of my nonsense.
Please update your bookmarks (ha! who’d bookmark me?) and blogroll / rss feeds. 🙂
I came across an excellent post on PVP Power and Resilience today, Eldacar’s Guide to PvP Power and Resilience.
The author does a great analysis of the value of adding resilience and the interplay of PvP Power and Resilience. I strongly recommend reading the entire post.
Yesterday I logged in to my realm to someone asking in trade for more to come help kill the Darkmoon Rabbit. I’d heard about the “wabbit” on twitter and had once gone to see the cave where it spawns too but hadn’t really done any more research beyond that.
So I jumped on the offer. Many others did too and soon we had 35+ people. Six tanks and 4 healers. This wasn’t going to work. So I switched to my priest – Callendula – and went with my discipline spec.
We made our way to the cave. The Wabbit didn’t look too scary.
On closer inspection, he has 174m health. Hrm.
It was a rude surprise for me when I logged in to find my PvP gear nerfed. All the Cataclysmic gear was nerfed from 397 to 384. Having Cataclysmic gear that I had to work for downgraded to raid finder level gear didn’t feel too nice. This is different from Cataclysmic gear becoming easier to get, this is about good gear being nerfed more than half a tier. I was at 153K health unbuffed, and post patch in the same gear I am 138K. My equipped ilvl was 402, it was now down to 389. So all in all, it didn’t feel nice. But what can you do, you have to adapt and roll with it.
Patch 5.0.4 is here. I’ve been traveling for work most of this week so I couldn’t really sit down and play to get a feel for it until last night.
First the talents. What I love most about my warrior is his mobility and Double Time was at the top of my list. I also love to intervene, so I took Safeguard. Dragon Roar is also tons of fun, though I’ll probably switch back to shockwave for prot – the shorter cooldown on it is handy and I’ve come to see it as a staple of my trash pickup toolbox. Second Wind is probably more useful for me in PvP so I’ll explore the other two in this tier. And Disrupting Shout sounds very useful but I need to train myself to use it appropriately.
At this point I hadn’t been able to get the blasted glyphs UI to work in game so I queued for a HOT 5man heroic without glyphs.
What a total clusterfuck it was.
Last night my warlock on Illidan got high enough to queue for LFD and I started running some randoms. I had a fairly uneventful and smooth Wailing Caverns run. I then queued again and got Shadowfang Keep.
So we had a bear tank, a paladin healer, a hunter, a rogue and my warlock.
A round of hellos was exchanged and we got down to business.
From the very first pull, things seemed a little… strange. The very first trash pack… the tank ran to a mob, smacked it and then ran back to the healer. I didn’t think much of it. But then the second mob, up the stairs… he ran up, tagged it, ran over the railing and back to us. Odd… but we took the mob out no problem. This run in, tag, hit the mob and run back to group style of play went on and though as a dot caster I wasn’t too bothered, I could see the rogue getting a bit confused as he was trying to chase the mobs around as the tank bounced all over the room.
I’ve been feeling the call of leveling on a PvP realm for a long time. I know many people who say they’ve tried it and did not like it. On the other hand I know some who don’t want to play at all unless it is on a PvP realm.
I started WoW in the end of Burning Crusade with a very good friend of mine and we both rolled hunters. It was the first time playing an MMO for the both of us. I rolled a night elf and he a dwarf. I made the run from Teldrassil to Dun Morogh to join up with him. We had wonderful adventures. We went into Deadmines at level as a group of two hunters and were amazed that “green level” mobs hit us so very hard and yellows were so damn hard to beat. We almost downed the first boss, or maybe we actually did. I just remember us trying to hard to drop the two bouncers outside his door before they killed us. We did not know that there were tanks in this game or that there were healers. We thought we’d take turns bandaging ourselves while the other fought. We stood far apart and tried to make the mobs run between us to give us a chance to heal up. When a mob started chasing us, we’d run from it so the other one could hit it – without knowing what it was, we learnt to kite. And that was where I started becoming aware of the beast that is aggro.
Outside the game, we cracked wife aggro jokes with our wives (who themselves are the very best friends with each other) Â and they rolled their eyes at us.
I think back then you could use potions more than once in combat. Perhaps that is how we finally downed that first boss.
The Mists trailer launched today. I wasn’t looking forward to it all that much and felt like “I’ll watch it whenever it comes out.” .
So this morning I logged in and went to check it out, and I loved it.
A few hours later, I’m already seeing posts and tweets from people who think that it is too cartoony or that its sexist and I think that’s crazy talk.
When I saw the video, I saw a really well animated and detailed orc and a human land on an island. I then saw them get into a fight and a pandaren intervened. The facial expressions are awesome, you can tell the team making the cinematic had fun with it. The pandaren thrashed both of them and then the excellent voice over during the panorama shot set things up nicely for the expansion. The graphics were top notch, the music rousing and the absence of a big bad boss and focus on exploring a new land and people refreshing.
In a game where a gnome tank can take on a tauren warrior and mages can turn people into sheep, I don’t know how this expansion is cartoony. In fact, the focus on internal conflict, exploration and facing demons of our own creation is more mature themes than we’ve had in the past. Will it take being mauled by a panda for these people to realize that pandas are not care bears? They’re BEARS. Their cousins have been tanking and flag carrying for you for three expansions now. You assume them to be cute and fluffy at your own peril.
And as for sexism in this trailer. I don’t know… I think some people just find what they’re looking for even if it is in no way implied or intended.
I’m male and perhaps I just don’t get it but to me it looks like Blizzard is equally accommodating to both genders. We have male and female quest givers, we have the ability to roll male and female toons. Stats for genders are also identical. I honestly wouldn’t feel any different had a female pandaren beaten the orc and human up. Thing is though, the pandaren is Chen Stormstout. As a “boss” he was going to win the fight. So if you’d had ladies from the alliance and horde take the spotlight, they too would get thrashed. And that opens its own can of worms. While many a feminist will ask for equal opportunity for women in all things, I don’t know many who’ll ask for equal opportunity for getting beaten up by a panda.
And if the trailer didn’t have females, it also didn’t have casters or any of the other races. Should every cinematic be so politically correct that the story they’re trying to tell takes second place?
That would be boring.
Awesome trailer Blizzard. It is just a shame how people can’t appreciate a good thing when its handed to them. From those of us who loved it, GREAT JOB and we wish you’d make a Warcraft movie with your in house CGI team.
Battleground Tactics – Strand of the Ancients
Color returned to the world with a rush. She was in a massive courtyard. Down the hill on the right were the remains of a shattered golden gate where a moving battle raged, inching its way up the hill. Uphill on her left, on stairs leading to another set of doors raged a smaller skirmish.
There was shouting, explosions, smoke, the thrum of magic in the air which itself had a metallic taste to it… of fear. There were shadow priests in that scuffle somewhere. But above all this was the sound of heavy machinery, the stench of burning oil… she felt the very ground shuddering with the push of the heavy siege machinery.
Advancing “south” is confusing.
No longer in the void, with her senses reengaging, she tried to get her bearings and find her friends. Continue reading
Saw links to an awesome Korean pop music video making the rounds on twitter yesterday.
Have to share it here. This is awesome PVP music to thunderpunt to!
Not only does it make me want to play my female orc elemental shaman Bijli to, but it also makes me think of my two male belfs – Thunderspank and Thudnblunder and the trail of mayhem they can leave in a battleground to this music.
And now if you’ll excuse me… EEAAAYYY SEXAYY LAYDAYYY!
Thunderspank 