fredag 31 augusti 2007

I don't want skulls and spiders!

I really needed a new mouse. Not that the old one wasn't working - but I wanted more keys!

Went to the local computer store and what did I see. Full shelves with great keyboards and awesome mouses. BUT - every one of them had this "kewl" spiders, webs, skulls, crosshairs etc.

I DON'T WANT NO FRIGGIN SKULLS ON MY MOUSE!!!

As a mid 30 daddy of two, skulls and spiders on my computer is NOT cool. It's ridiculous...

Gawd how I hate that computer games are meant for 13-year olds.

The problem if the industry wants to broaden its consumer base is that they have to adjust to a matured audience.
Let's not even get into the design of female avatars in games, which are the wet dreams of computer geeks. (Just look at plate pants for ladies in WoW that have the design of French underwear...)

Finally I bought myself a Microsoft mouse with 2 extra thumb buttons. Not the mouse I wanted the most - but the best without the graffiti...

No love for the fury/prot spec

I re-specced yesterday. 0/30/31 is the new spec. I saved 31 in Prot to get to Shield slam and went for Flurry in the Fury tree.

Today I discussed it with one of my guild mates an IRL friend playing a feral druid. No love for the hybrid build. "You have to be full prot or Fury/Arms to be any good" he said. To his defence I must say that he never played a warrior. And this is the common criticism cross the classes. Most non warriors think full prot is THE only spec to have for tanking. And full fury/arms for dps.

What they never know is that many competent warrior guides recommend 18-20p in prot to be able to tank efficiently (defiance is the key, imp sunder and taunt is nice complements).

The sad part is that me and my druid friend had that problem earlier on in Botanica. We went together. The pally healer said at once (PUG ofc) "I wont go with 2 tanks!".
We assured the healer that he (the druid) was very good at dps so that wouldn’t be a problem. The pally muttered something and bitched about low dps the whole instance. We cleared it beside one wipe - which was the pallys fault.

Even so - my druid friend wont believe that non full specc can do the job. I really don’t get it.

onsdag 29 augusti 2007

Going for the Wall

I am taking the plunge. Me and a fellow warrior are gonna start an Arena team. Just the two of us.

What are you sayin?

"Aint you a prot warrior?", "You dont have the dps?", "A team of two warriors are doomed?"

Well all of the above is true. But we want some arena gear. More specifically "Merciles's Gladiators Shield Wall".
After reading Berghs compendium on tank gear over at Tankspot I have seen the light. I need that shield. (Well - I want it at least) Beside being better than other shields - it looks cool.

And being just the 2 of us gives us the opprtunity to have our disgrace for our selves.

Now we need a fitting name. Birdfeed or Carrion are the most aproriate I can come up with right now =D

måndag 27 augusti 2007

The trouble with tanking

//This was a post I made on Kaliope's crafting blog. Realizing that I have not made any on my own made me post it here too :)

My original char was a paladin who wanted to tank. But I found the class severly lacking. Not to mention that pre TBC you could only tank undead instances. After the 2.0 we had a good space for pally tanking since Scholo and Strat undead sport mostly undeads. But after TBC i made myself a Dranei warrior, Whyrm on Ravenholdt, and I havent regretted it once.

Tanking was always my prime goal. And even if I leveled as fury I respecced at once when I hit 68-ish.

I felt the dps drop severly - but not nearly as much as I would have expected. The +10% dmg talent on 1h-ers make up for some loss from other abilities.

I still go through ordinary 70 mobs like a knife through butter, not a red hot one though - more lilke a luke warm one.

BUT the great up-side with tanking is not about damage. It is about standing there in-front of a huge boss blocking, parrying and dodging. We dont kick ‘em in the teeth - we hold them in their nose hair. Its painfull but not really hurting.

One other upside is the availability to find a group. Always some one calling out for a tank to an interesting dungeon in LFG.But here you have to be careful.

Some things to look out for:
  • Guys in full arena gear - they havent had a need for aggro managment for a loooong time.
  • Guys without a guild - why would you wanna play with someone who dont like to cooperate?
  • Hunters/warlock without a pet - If you are a “pet” class, why not use it?
  • “I only want rep” - these guys usually wants it to go so fast that any hickup will make em jump ship in the middle.
  • Generally anybody who jumps all the time - only 13 year olds are that impatient

tisdag 14 augusti 2007

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog about the art of combining a decent job and a wonderful family with an almost addictive desire to play World of Warcraft.

How do you manage to tank Shadow labs while having a 2 month old baby sleeping in your lap?

I will address not only time management issues and how to keep the wife-mob happy, but also the annoyance of wanting to buy a new cool game mouse - but without the friggin skulls and spiders!!!
Gaming is not only for 13-year olds...

I hope you want to come here and participate with comments.

My primary language isn't English, but WoW is an international game - so why not write for everybody. Responses from parenting vs. gaming from different countries will be appreciated!

Welcome again!