Deficiencies

As the title of this blog probably makes clear, I play Marksman hunters.  Four of them, three of which are 85, and the fourth is 82 and waiting for me to get around to doing Cataclysm zones yet again.  But as I have eight characters at 85 and a slew of lower level characters, it's probably also clear that I play other classes.

Like with hunters, my foray into other classes tends to be specialization specific: I play priests almost exclusively as discipline, for example.  I think my 85 priest has two 5-man runs as shadow... ever.  I've never specialized into Holy.  My warlock (who will likely get bumped up the alt chain due to the 'lock changes in Mists) is exclusively destruction.  My rogue was exclusively subtlety until dual-spec and the simplification of okay assassination damage rotations in Wrath made it possible for me to do more than solo or PVP on her.  My warrior was my most frequent foray into active dual-specializing; I leveled her as fury, but also kept up with her prot spec (which I love to pieces).  My shaman has an offspec (right now it's enhancement, though for a period in Burning Crusade it was resto), but she hasn't actually queued as anything but elemental in probably three years.

For the most part I do okay with these alts.  My priest has done 6/8 of Dragon Soul 10, somehow missing a random boss in each half, but having killed Deathwing.  I healed extensively with her at 70, gearing her out as well as Duskhawk through both Karazhan and whatever we were calling Justice/Valor points back then.  My warrior (whom y'all have seen in her shiny new transmogrification recently) can tank the new five-mans okay when I get up the nerve to queue into them, and my baby warrior is being leveled prot and doing random dungeons exclusively as a tank - I haven't even given her a DPS offspec.  (Prot AOE with Blood & Thunder, Cleave, and Victory Rush is a surprisingly satisfying way to level if you can find areas dense enough to pull enough mobs at the same time.)  I haven't done as much with my rogue recently, but I very much enjoyed 2v2 with my brother's rogue way back in the day, as well as Extreme Herb Farming (AKA getting exalted with Sporeggar via solo herbing trips in Underbog).  My warlock is... complicated as destro right now, but I think I'm getting a feel for it again.  She's got my transmutation alchemy, and I like her more as a goblin than when she was a blood elf.  My shaman I've taken through raid finder and gotten geared about equally to my priest - spammable chain lightning is awesome.

Those are the alts I'm at least marginally good at.  Combined with my hunters, that's six of ten classes.  The remainders (death knight, druid, mage, and paladin) I haven't gotten to level cap.  Even with all my baby alts, the ones I play the most are the priests (discipline, one of each faction, both in Northrend) and my warrior, who's in the upper 40s right now.  I like priest healing, and the queues for both the priests and the baby prot warrior are generally fast and painless.  That doesn't help with the "expand my horizons" kind of stuff I figured I would do prior to Mists, though.

Now, I've got one of each of the others.  I actually have a crapload of level 5ish mages, mostly gnomes, mostly with the same name.  I finally made myself get one further, so I have a draenei fire mage in the mid-20s.  She has portals!  And I know crap about fire.  My husband plays a mage at level cap, so I theoretically have someone around I could ask for help, except he plays the two other specs: arcane for PVE and frost for PVP.  Let's face it; I like to burn stuff.  This is why my warlock is destro.  I'm looking forward to Hot Streak, when I can cut out Arcane Missiles and spend more time with Pyroblast.  But really - I have no idea what I'm doing.  I push buttons, fire happens, and maybe I'm doing okay?  It's hard to gauge if I'm doing okay DPS at my level when I don't have heirlooms on the server she's on, and most of the other DPS I random into groups with do.  I'm having fun with her, which is the important part, but I don't want to be a burden on a group (or kicked) if I'm not pulling my weight and just don't realize it.

I tried playing a death knight back when they first came out, and it wasn't too bad; I just got bored with it. I made a new one a couple months ago to try to see if it's any better now in terms of "got bored with it" - and I'm not sure, because the specs and rotations don't really readily present themselves.  I have a bunch of buttons, and they do stuff, but I don't know which strikes to use in which spec.  She's unholy mostly because I find the ghoul names amusing.  She's also already acting as a bank, at 58.

I have a different but similar problem with my druid.  She's 15, currently feral, and which abilities she's supposed to use are obvious.  I just can't seem to get into playing her.  Maybe it's the zone - I started her as a worgen, so at this point she's been dumped into Darkshore, and really, after hearthing to Auberdine for the entirety of my Vanilla Alliance career, Darkshore is painful for me.  I spent a lot of time there, and the places and NPCs that I was familiar with are dead and destroyed.  Maybe if I take her over to Westfall the environment won't be so discouraging to getting to know her.

I've got two paladins.  One is my original Vanilla paladin, still in her 40s, who was shuffled around servers when transfers were free from overcrowding.  The other is my relatively new Tauren paladin, who is about 72.  I've been playing them as retribution, because ret is relatively easy, the buttons you push are pretty straightforward, and stuff dies.  I've gotten to the point that I'm not sure I'm doing ret right in groups, though; I'm pretty sure I should be doing better DPS, but I'm not sure how.  So I got them both some intellect plate (a challenge in both level brackets, surprisingly - and intellect plate heirlooms, at least from Justice Points, seem to be... lacking) and gave them holy off-specs, and... Oh, my God, I have no idea what any of these buttons or procs in holy mean.  I heal on three priests, right?  I push buttons, heals and bubbles happen, and I'm pretty good at keeping my mana bar at least half full for most of a dungeon, unless the tank or DPS are crazy and pull all the things.  But on the paladin?  I haven't really figured out her mana management.  I looked at some forum posts, and it seems to be a matter of picking efficient spells, using spells I don't have yet at that level, and judging with Insight.  But just reading spell tooltips and talents, I'm really not sure.

So yeah, there's four classes that I haven't played much, and at this point I think I've figured out why:  they're not intuitive for me.  Whether this is a deficiency of me or of the class or spec in question, I'm not sure.  My guild's death knight contingent, which had been pretty strong in Wrath even after the novelty wore off, has been more or less decimated in Cataclysm.  We don't have any death knights raiding regularly with us, and the ones that sometimes do are alts.  If I'm going to play her at all, I think I'm going to have to look up what each spec uses just so I can figure out how to get started with her.  We still have some dedicated druids; I think in the case of druids, it's really just me.  For some reason they don't click.  Paladins the guild still has in spades, and I think in this case it's a learning curve thing.  I'm going to have to actually sit down and read something to do 5's as a holy paladin, which seems kind of weird after how intuitively I got into discipline healing.  I think for the mage it may just be I picked a bad leveling spec, at least for groups; I'm kind of a slow caster on her still, so stuff tends to die in heirloomed groups before I can get a fireball off on it.

The overall deficiency with these classes probably isn't the classes, really; the problem is that I tend to pick specs that I like conceptually.  I was into Robin Hood and William Tell when I was in... about 4th grade; accuracy and trick shot kind of stuff appealed to me; I went Marksman in Vanilla, and other than occasional stints to tame pretty things, I've never left it.  I like discipline priesting because I like indirect healing, and I like utility, which discipline used to have a bit more of way back when.  I love atonement healing, and it's made leveling as discipline, which I've always done with my priest, so overpowered.  I can handle stuff up to about six or seven levels higher (singly; I've done groups of about six mobs three and four levels higher (accidentally) without dying) before the hit rating glyph for Smite and Holy Fire becomes insufficient.  I rolled my first warrior with the intention of tanking - before I rolled my first Horde hunter, actually.  I didn't actually level her for another two or three years, but smacking stuff in the face with a shield is my favorite part of being a warrior.  I've always loved subtlety's survivability, and getting around without being noticed is my favorite part of being a rogue: cat burgling, in a way, even though it's just an herb or something.  My lock is a pyro (and my void walker always got me killed).  And, well, I mentioned my shaman and chain lightning.

I like the idea of a pyro mage.  I have a chimenea in the back yard, and I like to have fires.  I also picked up grilling recently, because, well, fire.  (First time lighting a charcoal grill: one match. /flex)  Arcane appeals to me for similar reasons that discipline originally did, but the novelty of setting the world on fire with my draenei probably has to wear off first.  Holy was my first spec as a paladin, and I went ret when I picked the class up again... five? years later for the expediency of leveling.  The last time I really played holy, consecration was a talent.  It's changed so drastically since then.  Death knights and druids, though?  I don't really conceptually favor any of their specs - this is probably part of my problem getting into them.

So for now the death knight and druid will probably stay on the bench; since I kind of get the mage, and at least sort of get ret paladins, even if I haven't figured out how to make holy work, I'll probably focus on those two of my un-level-capped classes.

A New (for me) Warrior Transmog

Several weeks ago, after going through a cash-rebuilding spree following my splurge on Poseidus, I found myself awash in thorium and old world gems.  I was flipping through my various crafting books, looking for something that might make me more cash than the raw ore and gems themselves, when I (re)discovered the Enchanted Thorium Plate.  I was something of a completionist on my blacksmith for recipes 300 skill level or lower, so I did a lot of the blacksmithing quests and went through becoming a swordsmith on her.

So a couple weeks pass with me trying to unload the breastplate and pants on the auction house, but unfortunately my blacksmith is on Bronzebeard and not a fashion-conscious RP server.  What did this mean?  My warrior got a new look:

Boots, for a troll, are of course the hardest part, so I'm still using the Shinkicker boots I put on her as soon as transmogrification was put in.  A lot of the rest of the pieces changed, though.

• Helm:  I keep it hidden, so I haven't bothered.
• Cloak:  Similarly, I like the clean, no-cloak look on my warrior.
• Chest:  Enchanted Thorium Breastplate.  There are some "same model as" options, but none of them have the attacked choker.  I really like the black/gold/steel coloring and the arm detail.
• Legs:  Enchanted Thorium Leggings.  I like the color contrast between the leggings and the breastplate; same color scheme, but the black leggings give the set a better look than if the steel were dominate here.  These pants are decidedly low-riders if you forgo a belt.
• Shoulders: Stormforged Shoulders.  These are a great color match for the Enchanted Thorium look, although they do sharply highlight the improvement in graphics detail between Vanilla WoW and Cataclysm.
• Feet:  My beloved Shinkicker Boots.  A few other boots still available in the game (Gothic Sabatons, Heavy Lamellar Boots) have the same clean lines, but the color doesn't go quite as well.
• Hands:  Ymirjar Lord's Handguards.  I was having trouble finding gloves I liked to go with the set, but flipping through my banked items, I found my tier 10 gloves.  The color isn't a perfect match, but the overall look (dark, metallic, with yellow/gold scrollwork) works overall.
• Wrists:  Since they're hidden by the gloves, I didn't bother transmogrifying the wrists.
• Waist:  The old-school Belt of Might.  I am loving this belt and finding that it goes with damned near anything I want to dress up my troll in.
• Shield:  FOR THE HORDE!  Ahem, still the Tyrant's Shield.  (If you follow the link over to WoWhead, I have the pants... if you can call them pants... in that first screenshot in the bank, but opted against having my troll's cheeks free to the wind.  I'm curious now what they'd look like on a tauren.)
• Sword:  Blazing Rapier.  The sword, like the gloves, was something I was having trouble finding something I liked that worked through the set.  But, as I mentioned, my blacksmith is a swordsmith, and lo and behold, the Blazing Rapier.  It doesn't show up in the screen-grab from the armory, but if you look at the WoWhead link, you can see that it has its own fire aura.  This was especially awesome because I hate how (the admittedly cheap) Mending glow looked.  (If I can get a weapon of a higher ilvl than 346, I'll put something better on it.)

Evolution

My beta play has been slowed down by the mind-numbingness that is being asked to chair a search committee at work, and Diablo 3 will probably occupy my attention for a bit.  I'm a Loque'nahak kill from having finished Northern Exposure (Outland rares are being sneakier), and I've made back about 60k of what I spend on Poseidus (and then went and did Haris Pilton's bag achievement, and got a Kirin Tor ring, which was immensely handy).  I may break down and get a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth with account-wide mounts going in, because, let's face it, I can't be an engineer on every toon.  (Mostly due to the ore costs, really.)

So yeah, I've been in tying-up-loose-ends mode in WoW, and D3 isn't going to really change that.  What D3 does have me doing is thinking about the evolution in the complexity in game play in both the Diablo and the WoW worlds.

I mostly played a Rogue in Diablo.  I like playing an archer/ranged class, and you could still learn all the spells if you put enough points into magic.  I put a lot of points into magic.  Fire Wall was my go-to spell for practically everything, and I used Town Portal for extra light.  Yes, extra light.  I had the gamma turned all the way up, and I still needed more light.  The game was pretty simple: you just descend through increasingly lower levels of the dungeon.

Diablo 2, and its expansion, upped both the complexity of the story and the game play: you could enhance items with sockets via gems and runes; each class had unique skill sets and talents (rather than everyone learning the same magic spells); charms could further improve your character; and the game had a distinct storyline that wasn't just "get to the bottom of the dungeon and kill the big demon."  There was some flexibility (I had a stupidly huge amount of fun with a Barbarian dual-wielding throwing knives), and I could get away with things like stacking light radius or Charged Bolt procs on my armor.  (35%+ chance of Charged Bolt proc was a delicious, wonderful thing.)  I played several of the classes (Amazon, Mage, Assassin, Barbarian) that I immediately recognized the influence of when I moved on to WoW down the road.

So now we're looking at Diablo 3, and it's interesting to see just how much the evolution of WoW is influencing it in the same way D2 influenced the classes in WoW.  You can glyph skills to change their utility, and the quests and lore have been much more fleshed out.  The gameplay is a bit more... strategic?  Some skill sets work better for groups, some for single-target, and I've found myself basically trapping and disengaging with my demon hunter to kite bosses or groups around, much in the way I would with my WoW hunter.

Still can't rotate the camera, but I'd imagine that decreases the overall video/data load of the game by having a flat, if animated, canvas to work with.  Going back and forth between D3 and WoW (where I use click to move) is always an adjustment, as well.  (One of these days I'll give in and invert my D3 mouse buttons.)  I had to remap a lot of the default keybindings, as well, since I am a diehard qwasde user for in-combat movement.

Battletags were a nice addition, and through some experimenting with someone who had RealID disabled, but who I'd friended in D3 via battletag, we discovered that you can see someone you have battletag friended in WoW (that they're online, and what server they're on), but you can't see what character they're on, and you can't interact with them via the battletag/RealID communication or party invitation channels.  Also apparently it will tell people when I am in both WoW and D3.  Ahem.

Bottom line: I want Hungering Arrow in WoW. >.>

Beta Mists, 8

Okay, back to the beta!  D&D was canceled tonight, so I have some time to kill.

Which is good, because I'm in the Valley of the Four Winds now, in the area with the Turtles of DOOM.  I think I crashed out... ten times?  About that, to kill five turtles.  Erg.

Macros work if you put an ! in front of spell names.

Krasarang is still closed, but I've found a couple quests that point that way.  I'm gonna guess it's the next zone open.

Hm, looks like another 'you need to kill five things but they're way overfarmed' quests.

New favorite quest!  "Crouching Carrot, Hidden Turnip."

Fast forward a week:  I spent most of the week disconnecting every five minutes.  It's more stable now, and more zones are open, so yay! more to take pictures of.

Hadrian finally has a spec!  Of course, misdirection is still broken.

I rolled a Pandaren until he puked. o.O

The Jade Witch is finally fixed... and apparently there were more quests after that one that I couldn't get to before.  I guess I'm questing in the Jade Forest again.

Woo, crashed again.

New cave maps!  But, um, the map doesn't actually show up yet.

The Jade Serpent is beautiful!  I'd imagine that, like the green drakes, I'm never actually going to get that color for a mount, though.  (Still waiting on my green drake, dammit.)

Tried Temple of the Jade Serpent; group fell apart.  (Come on, people, it's beta, we're all still learning it. >.<)

But I hit 87 (current level cap), and got Stampede.  Which I can apparently cast while moving.

Valley of the Four Winds has the Tillers faction, which will, among other things, let you have your own little farm mini game, which isn't yet implemented.  Krasarang Wilds has the Anglers, which have fishing poles, a (slowly sinking?) raft, and a water bug mount that lets you walk on water.

Lots of NPCs have little notes (I'm a girl, NEEDS HOE OR RAKE, temp model) that are presumably for the developers, but I find them quite amusing in the meantime.

Database Sites

Wowhead:  A repository of items, quests, spells, NPCs and other information.  The search is spelling-dependent, but the user-submitted comments on items or quests can be extremely helpful.  Includes basic strategies for many raid and dungeon bosses.  Includes a transmogrification set gallery.

Thottbot:  Similar to Wowhead, but with a different interface.

Allakhazam:  Also similar to Wowhead, but with a different interface.

Wowpedia:  A wiki-based encyclopedia of WoW lore, including people, places, histories, and items, as well as game mechanics information.

Wowwiki:  An older wiki, which Wowpedia has, to some degree, replaced; updating is hit or miss.

Battle.net:  Blizzard's official site, including blogs, the Armory (character search), and other official game information.

Moon Guard Wiki:  A wiki created for Moon Guard, a role-playing server, including information useful both to general role-playing and to the Moon Guard community.

Gem & Sockets

Which gems activate which sockets?

• Red socket: red, orange, purple, prismatic
• Yellow socket: yellow, orange, green, prismatic
• Blue socket: blue, green, purple, prismatic
• Meta socket: meta
• Cogwheel socket: special cogwheels from engineering vendors

Diggerest

So I've got beta access, and Diablo 3 beta access, and I've gotten Duskhawk to 86 on the beta.  And what am I doing?

Archaeology on the live realms. >.<

This weekend I checked off Nerubian, Vrykul, Draenei, and Troll completions (I already had Orc done), which means I finished the Blessing of the Old God, the Nifflevar Bearded Axe, the Last Relic of the Argus (the most awesome thing I've gotten from archaeology so far), and, ahem, Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds.

I love the model for Zin'rokh.  I loved it back in Vanilla (not that I ever got it), and it's still one of my favorite sword models.  Surprisingly, the Troll completion was less frustrating than the Draenei one.  Having finished out the Orcs and everything of the Draenei once except the Last Relic, I had to go through thirteen more common item completions to get the Last Relic into my queue.  Zin'rokh?  I was actually trying to whittle down my only half-done list of Dwarf artifacts.  (Dwarf is still 25/31... I keep getting Fossil sites.)  At least the Dwarf artifacts got me to Diggerest.

Tol'vir I know is going to take forever.  I've completed all of the common ones at least once, and none of the rares, and I keep spawning Troll and Night Elf sites.  With my massive number of completed Night Elf commons, Tyrande's Favorite Doll has to be soon, right?  Right?  The Fossilized Raptor has been the same way for me.

I think the archaeology rares were a good idea in theory, but in practice?  Hardly anyone gets them while they're relevant to the current tier of equipment.  The fun items are far more... fun as rares.  Maybe the usable, Binds-to-Account equipment should have been less than epic, but more common, just to make it useful when you find it.