The Misadventures of Svenn

Hard Modes!

2010-08-26T14:11:00.003-08:00

Svenn has been working on hard modes a lot lately…sort of…well not so much. While his guild is 7/12 ICC 10 HMs, Svenn has only been raiding 1 night a week (25man), and so has been missing out on all the hard mode goodness. Not one to be left out though, Svenn found an alternate solution to lack of consistent raiding time; Angry Birds!

Angry Birds is an app in which you slingshot birds at pigs in order to “pop” them in retribution for them stealing your eggs. It is a very addictive game (much like WoW), gives achievements (also similar to WoW), and as Svenn recently found out, it has a worldwide ranking system. Having beaten the game for now (it sees periodic releases of new content, again like WoW), he is now engaged in his own version of hard modes; getting 3 stars in every level.

While Angry Birds is nothing like WoW in terms of game play or purpose, it has clear parallels in structure to WoW, a trend we are sure to continue to see crop up over and over again, even in as unlikely places as smart-phone apps.

A Tale of Two Squidies

2010-08-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

It certainly has been. As you no doubt noticed, Svenn has been absent, AGAIN! As summer draws to a close here in Alaska, it is indeed the best and worst of times. This time of season represents some of the best Alaska has to offer: salmon runs are in full force on many local streams, hunting is gearing up, and of course , there isn’t much snow left to contend with. On the other hand, it portends the rapidly approaching onset of winter (Fall being an extraordinarily short affair here in the Northern latitudes).

Anyways, in and around fishing, grasping at the last days of daylight and warmth, and spending time with the kiddos before school starts again, Svenn has been working on the new mage. Koal has reached Outlands and is sitting at lvl 65 right now. Grayce’s DK, Circi, joined him there and it has been a nice change of pace to level with someone again.

As leveling with Grayce involves both of us being on at the same time, not always an easy feat to manage with 3 kids, Svenn has also begun to level a Shammy in his off-off-time. I KNOW! MASOCHIST! Hence the “2 Squidies” in the title (Koal is Draenei as well). This did involve running a heroic or tow to buy a second set of BoA trinkets, but I had most of the badges saved up so it didn’t take long at all.
Voller has hit the ripe old age of 24, so he is still not very exciting to play. He does have 3 of 4 totem slots filled already (BTW, why did no one warn me how painfully annoying the totem quests are !?!), and his mana is holding out a bit better now than at the earlier levels.

While Koal’s AoE goodness assures him the number 1 DPS spot every time (he’s no slouch on single target either), Voller has struggled to keep up. I am hoping things get better once he learns dual wield at 40, though he may go heals at that point….we’ll see.

To Recap: Svenn is still here. Life is busy. Leveling 2 toons at once is working out so far. Oh, and Ottar (the S-priest), my current raiding toon, is finally breaking 10k DPS consistently (Had to throw that in since he gets played the most and talked about the least). Now if only he could catch those pesky mages:)

Game On!

2010-07-29T16:28:00.004-08:00

I like “Indian MTV”, Bollywood music videos to be precise. Strange I know, but allow me to explain. My affection for it began while serving in Iraq. To preserve manpower for combat missions we relied heavily on Third Country Nationals (TCNs) to provide various support functions (laundry, mess, etc.), the theory being that the fighting Soldier would then not be tied up doing sustainment tasks. Many of these TCNs were contracted out of Pakistan, some of them worked in the barber shop.

It started out harmlessly enough; I would go every 2 weeks to get my hair cut, it being essential to keep it short due to the heat and the infrequency of showering. While there I would watch whatever they had on their little TV while waiting, namely music videos. As time went by I was lured in by the driving rhythms, the haunting melodies, and of course, the sweet dance moves (described in one particular movie as “screwing in a light bulb with one hand while petting a dog with the other”). Soon I found myself getting a haircut once a week, then stopping in twice a week to have Chai with my new “friends” while getting my fix of “Tanak Tanakta”. I was hooked, and once you’re hooked there is no turning back.

Anyways, what does all that have to do with anything? Well, Codex (Felicia Day) and the rest of The Guild cast have done it again. Their second music video has been released
and…
its…
Awesome!

You can go check it out HERE, I’m sure you’ll get the connection once you do.
Enjoy!

Irrationality

2010-07-26T16:29:00.002-08:00

Why do we hate it when something we like becomes popular? When I was younger I was into Indie Rock, particularly the NJ Indie scene. I can remember going to see bands like Thursday, and Saves the Day in basements in New Brunswick and thinking to myself, “Man, these guys are good. They should be on the radio!” I remember sneaking into the Court Tavern, a few blocks from my house, to see E-Town Concrete and thinking “These guys should go on tour!” Yet, when they did in fact “blow-up” I remember thinking, “Man, I can’t believe so-and-so sold out.”

Despite the fact that I thought these bands were good enough to be national, beside the fact that I wanted others to hear them and know how good they were, I was resentful of having to share them out. That popularity must have come at the cost of some compromise, not out of a growing realization and through word of mouth that they were indeed good and deserved recognition. Even when I directly benefited from the explosive growth in popularity (I got my 1st apartment from Midtown band member Rob Hitt when he upgraded to go along with the growing success of his band), I felt somehow cheated out of a special secret that few others knew.

A parallel can be drawn in many ways I think, to WoW. A lot of the griping about the current state of the game grows out of those same root feelings held among the Vanilla generation. When the game was young it was much like an Indie Band, those small circles of folks “in the know” thought to themselves, “Man this is good. People should play this!” As WoW ballooned towards the 11 million subscriber mark, those same folks were left muttering “sell outs!” and pining for the days when they could go see their favorite band for a couple bucks thrown in when they passed the hat in some dimly lit ale soaked basement. They were left wondering what compromise was being made (and I don’t propose there weren’t any compromises along the way) and fearing that they weren’t going to be as special as they used to.

The same can be said about specs. A friend of mine played an Arcane Mage since BC. He swore up and down by the spec and proved he could be every bit the equal of the Fire Mages. Nowadays you can’t go 3 feet without tripping over an Arcane Mage, yet he switched to Rogue because Arcane “sold-out” on him. For myself, Svenn Pally tanked through BC when Pallys were not “real” tanks (Hyjal excepted). Once Wrath issued in the Golden Age of the Tankadin, I too was disgruntled. I switched to an aggressive Prot/Ret build, saw that it was good AND unique and thought “Man people are missing out. They should really try this!” Now, with the ICC buff up to 30% I am seeing more and more adaptations of that build as survivability can safely be traded in for more DPS…sold out again.

So, why do we hate it when something we like becomes popular? I’m not sure. I’m not even entirely positive it a conscious decision, maybe it’s more of a reflex action. In any case, even if the masses invade my inner sanctum of “RetProtadinism”, this time at least, I will try and enjoy the fact that something I am a fan of (read: DPS numbers from a tank) “blew-up”.

Death Penalties

2010-07-08T10:24:00.004-08:00

There has been a lot of discussion about death penalties in WoW over the last few weeks. From Rohan to Larisa, Psychochild to Wolfshead it seems everyone has an opinion.

Last week, I had the dubious honor of serving as a panel member on a Military Court-Martial. The trial lasted 4 days and we were sequestered (hence the lack of posts last week). Upon conclusion of closing remarks we were dismissed to the deliberation room to reach a verdict. Our verdict was to consider each individual charge and each separate specification (count) of each charge separately, with a guilty or not guilty determination being made in respect to each. In this way the Plaintiff could be acquitted of some charges, or counts of a charge yet be found guilty of others (not an “all or nothing” proposition). The verdict, once reached and delivered to the court, then determined the sentencing guidelines and deliberation began anew as to what punitive measures would be taken (if at all).

Leaving aside the particulars of the actual case, the plaintiff was found guilty on 5 counts each of 2 separate charges (acquitted on 1 count each of the same charges). The evidence was conclusive, guilt was apparent, all that remained was to determine the fate such a finding warranted. With all the charges piled up against them, one would expect a military panel to hang ‘em out to dry. Rather the opposite occurred; with the guilty verdict delivered, we (the panel) felt the message had been conveyed and so adjudicated the punitive measures rather leniently (at least in terms of maximum allowable sentencing). While there was still a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and allowances for a specified time, and a term of confinement (measured in days not years- to give you an idea), there was nothing career ending or permanently detrimental to the Soldier: a speed bump on the road of life, not a brick wall.

I think the death penalty in WoW should and does function much the same way. The fact that you are a ghost with a bright white screen is the guilty verdict, message conveyed. The time spent on corpse runs (confinement), gold spent on repairs (forfeiture of pay and allowances), and reset of a mob’s health (reduction in rank, relative to the progress you made before you died) is the sentence; punishment enough.

Alt Independence

2010-07-06T14:21:00.004-08:00

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one gamer to dissolve the bands which have connected him to one toon and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Azeroth and of Azeroth's God [Blizzard] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of gamers requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to roll an Alt.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all classes are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of lvl 80.....

That is to say, in a way honoring American Independence Day, a determination has been made as to the next class Svenn will play to 80. There were some technical difficulties involving the poll widget which resulted in a second poll being placed in the field, and thus 2 sets of contradictory polling data were returned. While Mage and Rogue took top honors respectively, the Mage voters were far more vocal in their support (also, I'm pretty sure Inno stacked the Rogue votes).

With a four day weekend for the 4th of July and the added treat of 10% extra XP from the Fire Fest, Koal (Svenn's new Mage, and the only toon thus far to escape the Scandinavian naming convention) shot straight to the fantasy land of Dual-Spec/ Epic Riding goodness and is sitting at level 45 right now.

Leveling has been rather painless (4 deaths total according to the stats page in the achievement menu), fast (holiday quests/ riding at lvl20/ instances as often as the queue will allow), and full of DPS scunion (1k DPS at lvl 38 should be illegal - ty boatloads of heirlooms, AoE, and tanks who pull huge). I'm sure I will have more observations as Koal progresses into higher lvl content, for now Happy belated Independence Day!

Fire Festival Folksong

2010-06-29T12:58:00.007-08:00

This would have been the last instalment of the Holiday Parodies series (I started last year with Brewfest) however, it has been brought to my attention that I accidently overlooked one; Curse you Children's Week! Anyways, I will work on getting that one up retroactively. In the mean time enjoy the Fire Fest:)

As sung to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel

Stormwind, IronForge, Westfall, Searing Gorge
Red Ridge, Dun Morogh, make sure you get 'em all

Burning Blossoms, Bonfire, summer flames, burnin' higher
Torch Tossing, Torch Throwing, never let it fall

Ashenvale, Silthus, Darkshore, Desolace
Mulgore, Tanaris, you better not miss

Flame Keeper, Lord Ahune, get it done, by June
Pole Dance, Holidays, you know are pure Bliss

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since Azeroth’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we don't get bored
But we fight the Horde

Blade’s Edge, HFP, Nagrand, SMV
Netherstorm, Terokkar, now I am lost

Sholazar, Dragonblight, Zul’Drak, got a light?
Slave Pens, insta-q, Ice Lord got Frost

Dustwallow, Ogrimar, Undercity, got far
Winterspring, Bloodmyst, Teldrassil, Azuremyst

Thunder Bluff, The Exodar, did I get Ogrimar?
Flame Smuggler, Torch Juggler, the trouble is I missed

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since Azeroth’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we don't get bored
But we fight the Horde

Burrning Steppes, Loch Modan, Elwynn Forest, Wetlands
Arathi Highlands, Eversong, How long can this go on?

Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, steal the flame from the Horde
Storm Peaks, Borean Tundra, and the Forest of Crystalsong

310 mount, Meta-Achyment, Twilight Hammer, got sent
Steal a flame, what a pain
Toasted Bun, Fiery Brew, last Holiday, I'm through
Longest grind on my main, 1year, its insane
And the Alts, what's in store? I can't take it anymore

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since Azeroth’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we don't get bored
When we fight the Horde
~Svenn

World Cup WoW

2010-06-23T15:48:00.006-08:00

With the World Cup entered into its final days of the group stages, teams are starting to show their true colors. As Wrath enters its final stage, a parallel can be drawn to guilds showing their true colors. From HC to casual, Svenn has drawn up a handy list to help figure out where your guild stands.
France: Big name stars, big egos. Some of the best players on the realm are found among the ranks of this guild’s raid team which seems destined for success. Unfortunately, while there is no “I” in team, there is a “me” and an abundance of talent all too often translates in to a strong individual sense of entitlement. Raid teams like this seem destined for greatness yet often fall far short of the mark, devolving into e-peen contests. Mutiny against the RL and rage quit often follow and the raid hearths back to Paris, I mean Dal, in disgrace.

Ivory Coast: One man show. This guild’s raid team is built around 1 or 2 key individuals. They shoulder the weight for the under-performers and can make or break the raid. If the Didier Drogba of the guild doesn’t show or has an off day, this raid is headed on a one way trip to wipesville.

United States: Scrappy and surprising. Free of huge expectations, this guild enjoys a moderate level of raiding success. They won’t be on the cutting edge of the raid scene anytime soon, but they continue to make inroads above and beyond what was anticipated. Miraculous 91st minute kills are met with joyous eruptions on vent, and no can take away the excitement or sense of accomplishment they exude on a progression kill, even if they are a month behind the server leaders.

Brazil: The machine. This guild is expected to, and often does, deliver greatness. A perennial contender for server first kills, they are methodic in their raiding. Like a machine, they grind through content, using only the optimal raid compositions and specs; Min-Max is their motto. Their habitual success can breed contempt at times, but insulated deeply in their own raiding culture, it more often results in an elitism that inspires rather than insults.

Germany: Perplexing performances. This guild has all the tools necessary to stand among the best, and the history to ensure continued access to new talent. Even still, they down Lich King with ease yet somehow managing to miss the 11 meter penalty kick on Loot Ship resulting in a troubling wipe. Ups and downs are just part of the game for this proven raid team, and no matter the outcome, they will be among the top performers again next expansion.

Canada: Please and thank you. This guild doesn’t make it to the world stage at all. Its raid team, if you can call it that, is scrapped together from whoever is online at the time. They may not go too far, but you better believe they’ll have fun getting there. Players are polite and the atmosphere enjoyable, progression is best left to the Brazils of the world.

What category does your guild fall into? I'm sure I've left out a few categories, so feel free to make up your own. Who's your team for the cup?

Svenn's Survival Guide to Alt Tanking

2010-06-21T14:33:00.005-08:00

Svenn has been doing a fair bit of tanking on Gundther as of late. As a new "under-geared" tank, he has experienced tanking challenges Svenn never faced tanking back when Heroics were "hard". Here are a few of the observations garnered from his recent trials:

1. You are NOT on your main! Slow down, chain pulling is fine if your healer can keep up, but no amount of healing awesomeness will be able to save you if you have the entire instance beating on you at once (especially when the 6k gear-score mage has more health than you).

2. Don’t sweat the aggro. The same 6k gear-score mage that has more health than you, will also be able to pull threat off you at will. Well, maybe not at will, but certainly if he/she is doing massive AoE damage or hitting mobs at the same time you just hit charge. Now, if toons the same gear level as you are ripping threat or your healer is a favorite target for mobs, you may need to reevaluate your tanking.

3. Ninja happens. DPS (I’m looking at you DKs!) will roll on “your” tanking drops. Work it out if you can, vote kick if you feel that strongly about it, but don’t sweat it or let it discourage you too much. At the end of the day, you will get 2-3 times the runs per hour than some ninja DPS guy. More runs = more badges =better gear anyways.

4. When in doubt whip it out, kill order that is. If you are having troubles with AoE, marking a kill order can go a long way to keeping mobs attached to you. If the DPS is insistent on hitting everything around at least you will have the peace of mind that you tried and they just can’t follow instructions well. Which leads me to my next point…

5. Grab it back! If you lose a mob, taunt it back. Trying to teach DPS a lesson about ignoring kill orders is futile. Chances are they can kill the mob before it kills them, the healer won’t let them die anyways, and it will just starve you of rage/procs/mana/etc.- thus reinforcing their poor performance. Make an assist macro to quickly switch targets (invaluable with melee DPS who will start getting smacked as soon as they pull aggro and are often difficult to distinguish in a crowd). This may seem counter-intuitive, but it will save you headaches in the long run while making your run smoother.

6. You lead the charge so lead! To make it clear, Svenn is not advocating for the “gogogo” crowd- they can all go die in a fire. Rather, while there may be others in your group that feel they know better, the burden will most likely fall on your shoulders so you may as well take charge. Good tanking takes confidence; you pick the pulls, you decide the kill orders, you set the pace. If you cede that control early, you wind up just being the designated meat shield along for the ride and won't be able to establish a good flow, protect your healer’s time to drink between pulls, plan for achievements should you choose to go that route, etc.

In the end, as with all PuGs, patience is the order of the day. Take solace in the fact that you are taking the hard road, tanking for tanking gear as opposed to DPSing until your tank set is stacked. Take each PuG as a learning experience, enjoy the good groups, learn from the bad, and strive to emulate the great. Every DPS in the queue appreciates your decision to tank, whether they act like it or not!

Kauput!

2010-06-17T09:04:00.005-08:00

It seems Svenn has done something to break the poll widget. Having heavily edited both the blogger template and the style sheets for individual posts, there is really no way for me to figure out what went wrong (short of some extensive line by line trouble shooting). Needless to say, somehow all my poll attempts now point to a non-existent page so if you want to cast a vote I guess you'll have to leave it in a comment... EDIT: Grayce showed me how to code a poll into the actual post!

poll by twiigs.com

It's times like these that make me seriously consider Wordpress or getting my own domain. If anyone has any experience with either of those I would love to hear your opinions, especially if you have used blogger too.

Vote Rogue or...

2010-06-15T15:58:00.005-08:00

the little rogue gets beat some more!...

Weather Forecast

2010-06-14T10:24:00.010-08:00

Weather predictions for WoW remain bleak as the massive pre-expansion low pressure front combines with the summertime slump hot air to form widespread dull drums stretching from low lying player bases up into the blogosphere. Extended forecasts are calling for spotty periods of /played with a slim chance of increased activity anytime soon.

Do these depressing reports distress you? Svenn has 3 quick tips to help weather the storm:

1. Alt opportunities. With decreased levels of raiding and the growing sense that gear gained now will be obsolete once Cataclysm hits (and not "needed" to clear anything new), now is the perfect opportunity to dust off that long neglected alt and get to levelin'!

2. Old World exploration. Life is a little slower in Azeroth proper, lack of flying mounts ensures this. The impending cataclysm will change the face of our beloved world forever, zones will be restructured and flying mounts will invade skies once reserved only for flight masters. What better time than now to get out and see a piece of the "Old World" before it is gone forever? Taking advantage of the slower pace of ground travel to visit the far corners of Azeroth might be just the thing you need to relax and recharge after grinding out all those levels, and rep, and gear, and... You may just pick up a little bit of the lore along the way.

3. Connect with Friends. Social interaction is what sets WoW apart from so many console games. However, we tend to place a premium on content and fail to take advantage of that outside of business related (raid/instance/BG/achievement) conversation. With increased queue times and ever shrinking "Bucket Lists", you may just find yourself with a few free moments to scroll through your friends list and reconnect with that awesome tank you ran with back in the day or that guy that hooked you up with some enchants or whomever.

Anyways, Svenn will, yep you guessed it, begin leveling another alt in the near future. A new poll is up on the side bar so make sure to cast your vote -I'm looking at you feed reader crowd ;)

Perspective

2010-06-11T13:39:00.011-08:00

If you've read anything that I've written you may notice that I ramble. I'm very busy running about doing who-knows-what at the oddest times. One thing that I am pretty sure that I have in common with all players is the use of the in game mail system. I fight to get through crowds to get to the mail box to send something to an alt or friend that they "need" or picking up my latest auction house purchase. Lately this has been in Dalaran.

Looking a little closer we can notice that there is a little portal that I would imagine would teleport my mail from one mail box to another. Well it seems that I'm seriously mistaken as to this being a special mail teleport. I challenge you to explain why there's no way to mail conjured mage food through the mail system. Oh sure you're going to explain that I've already answered it myself by stating that it's conjured food, but I disagree. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's because of the ravenous birds that support the mail system. Being magicaly bound denizens of the mail system they have a strong affinity to devour any type of mage food. Zoom in just a little closer to the mailbox "portal" and my point is made.

~Inno

Side by Side

2010-06-10T11:20:00.011-08:00

So Gundther is finally nearing the end; lvl 80 is a mere 12 bubbles of Xp away. While real life as well as raid commitments have kept play time on the warrior to a minimum, Svenn has been able to squeeze in a regular random just about every day (insta-tank queues FTW!) While this hasn’t been great from a leveling standpoint it sure has been a great train-up for warrior tanking, as well as accumulating a fair number of badges (38 to date). Along the way, Svenn has come to see warriors in a slightly different light….I may have to change the tag line under the banner heading now :(

Anyways, the similarities between Warrior and Pally tanking are a lot more numerous than Svenn would have expected when compared side-by-side.

AoE hate:
While the AoE aggro generating tools may not be quite as good or “instant” as the Pally’s they are there (given you have the rage to use them).
Thunderclap is basically a non-persistent Consecration
Cleave a slightly less hard-hitting Hammer of the Righteous
Damage Shield roughly equates to Retribution Aura
Defensive Stance is similar to Righteous Fury though it is not quite as good
There are no directly related talents to Avenger Shield or Seal of Command but Shockwave adds to the Warrior AoE toolkit, as well as Improved Revenge which operates very similar to a Druid’s Maul (glyphed).

Defense:
Shield Mastery is equal to Redoubt; when augmented with Shield Specialization actually results in higher block percentages.
Shield Block gives more extra block than Holy Shield but is offset with a longer cooldown and no damage component.
Improved Defensive Stance is similar in function to components of Devotion Aura and Blessing of Sanctuary, focusing more on spell damage mitigation as well as damage (TpS) increase.
Defensive cooldowns see a bigger divergence between the Warrior and Pally. While Shieldwall is similar in form to Divine Protection, Last Stand is more in line with a Druid’s Survival Instincts than anything in the Pally arsenal (Ardent Defender being their other main CD, though it is proced not activated).

Taunts:
Taunt is Hand of Reckoning minus the damage component, while Mocking Blow has the damage component but lacks the range
Challenging Shout is Righteous Defense minus the target limitations but at the cost of a hefty cooldown

Buffs:
There is no way a Warrior can match a Pally for group buffs, however Commanding Shout is a nice HP increase comparable to BoS/Kings from a Pally in the +Stam arena, and they have a few more debuffs than a Pally.

With all these similarities, and substituting a rage bar for a mana bar, the actual tanking mechanics become much more familiar. The differences are much more striking in nature. Warriors can apply the scalpel where Paladins must necessarily use a hammer. That is to say, Warriors have a much more varied toolkit at their disposal. Spell Reflect and Demoralizing Shout add survivability to magic and physical damage respectively, Shield Bash/ Shield Slam add interrupts and silences, while Devastate does good damage /great threat and debuffs the target (disarm is also a nice debuff when available). The ability to use Charge and Intercept in combat (Warbringer talent) combined with Intervene are great for zipping around, while Shoot and Heroic Throw add to your ranged options. Stance swapping opens even more possibilities; offensively with Whirlwind and Execute, and defensively with Overpower and Retaliation.

Overall I am finding the Warrior an engaging tank to play. While I still prefer the Pally for Off Tank duties/ 5mans due to its increase “utility” and self heals, I can see Gundther becoming a favorite for Maintank roles. I’m sure I will have more observations once I get some more exposure to tanking at level 80 and do a raid or 2 with him.

One Year Old....a month ago.

2010-06-08T13:52:00.007-08:00

As Svenn was going through some blog stuff with Inno, showing him the ropes, he realized something; Svenn blog turned 1! Some how my Blogoversary went unnoticed. How could this happen? Well as it turns out, Svenn has quite a good excuse, he is a slacker! Well either that, or it happened to fall on the same day as another, slightly more pressing date; namely, the birth of his son.

Yes, 5 May 2009 The misadventures came into existence with its seminal post "The Roster". Not much of an intro, but then again, Svenn didn't think anyone would ever read it. The past year has seen a lot of changes both in the blog and in real life. Originally started as a Tankadin blog, it has drifted away from that as Svenn has drifted to away to other pursuits as well. While, at the core, Svenn will always be a tank (witness the recent rise of Gundther the Prot Warrior) he has enjoyed moderate success as a Tree raid healing 25s, and most recently as a face melting shadow priest- filling in a need for ranged DPS when not leveling alts.

A Year in stats (data collection did not start until 24June).

Visits: 3,502... "just a smalltown blog, livin' in a lonely world(wide web), took the midnight train going any where..." from 57 Countries and 49 states. Come on Wyoming, stop holding out!

Most visited page: Sargeras Says Read This or Else! gone, but not forgotten. We miss you buddy!

Most popular search terms: 1. Variations of "Svenn Blog". Yep, you found it:)
2. Pally tank fast or slow weapon? Slow, differences are negligible on single target, but you will definitely see the benefits on AoE pulls.
3. Healbot for tanking. I was young, use Vuhdo, but the same principles apply.
4. Qweniver. Seriously, stop googling yourself! Just kidding Qwen, we love ya. Hope whatever tank you are healing these days appreciates your bubbles as much as Svenn did :)

Referrals: Direct traffic topped the list, thanks all who added me to their favorites/ feed readers.
The Fist webpage came in second, so thanks again to Jon for adding a link there and to all the great folks in FIST, I'm glad we still keep in touch:)

Most posts in a day: 4. What was I thinking!?

Things have slowed down again with the new addition to the Svenn clan and summer, more importantly fishing season, arriving in the great state of Alaska. As I look back over the past year and reflect on the 170 some odd posts, I am happy to have been able to share them with you even if some were less than mediocre. I very much look forward to another year of blogging; having Inno on the team should go a long way to keeping things fresh here at the Misadventures. We hope you come along for the ride.

Pixel Perception Part Duex, Mid-life Crisis

2010-06-07T10:12:00.001-08:00

....So I'm still lost looking for a really good quest zone for my level (remember, I'm a guy and refuse to ask). Then a bolt of lightning strikes. Tanaris! Yes I think I'll see if I've ever done those quests. Thanks to a helpful mage (Thank you Blinx!!!) I get a port to Dalaran (which I set as my home) and subsequently a portal that takes me directly to Tanaris. I make my way to the town and there are tons of shiny gold exclamation marks all over the place to which I greedily accept them. Now these quests I know and I know them well. I bravely ride forward on my SF-COD and begin to destroy all humanoids as though I'm attacking paper mache. BoA armor, enchanted weapons and trinkets make for a very easy questing experience. It's almost to the point where I'm just wishing they'd die when I walk near them since we both know that the outcome is going to be the mob face napping and Innoculated with full health (love those trinkets). Seriously if you're getting annoyed that your stealth isn't off cooldown yet after killing 2-3 mobs then you really need to settle down (I vow to follow this advice soon...maybe...).

So, all throughout Tanaris I'm stealthing, pickpocketing and sinisterly striking fear into mobs to the point that patrolling quest npc's totally refuse to spawn since they know that they don't stand a single chance at survival beyond hiding. Either that or it's all those silly level 80s trying for their loremaster title. I'm now on auto-pilot. I will now go to areas where I know that you get quests no matter your race, gender or particular weapons specialization. Another lovely zone waits for me in the Searing Gorge.

Hello Thorium Brotherhood. I see you have many many quests for me! I take all of these quests and set out to destroy yet another zone of mobs. Hours tick by and one by one I finish quests as they are so very easy. I think I spend more time watching television than I do watching my screen, but that's okay since I'm Innoculated the Invincible Rogue! I think I managed to get into another fun PuG or two as well. By fun I mean that I'm an idiot for not leaving the group as this instance doesn't really offer me any gear and putting up with these morons is not worth it (again all my fault). These guys seem to know everything except how to get from point A to point B. I assume that they're all guys as well since nobody asks for directions and they all ignore me when I tell them where to go. There's never a need to listen to DPS as they're only background noise anyway. Okay not all of the groups were that bad. I was actually in a group that almost made it to the Emperor, but a lock pet refused to stay put and kept aggroing the Emperor to the point of people leaving the group. We were "this" close. But that may or may not be a rambling story for another day.

I finish this fun instance and then finish my remaining quests and head to the Thorium Brotherhood to turn in all of the quests (yep, I finished each and every quest I found!). I am so tired but I can run all of this zone on "auto-pilot". I'm already planning my next move...head back to Tanaris and run on over to Un'goro crater. I am planning on how I'm going to start up the quest line to get that venomhide riding mount and vaguely thinking how that I'm glad that I'm level 50 and in eight short levels that I'll be in quick quest nirvana. Okay make that 10 levels as I'll pick up flying at 60...then it will be really quick. So I commence to turning in my quests and plotting the future of my little hordie rogue. I ride up to the flight master, right click...then I have a really big key indicator that I'd made a terrible mistake. The key indicator would be the fact that a flight point map did not appear. It seemed that the gryphon were so excited to take me somewhere that they flew up into the air and began LOLWTFZOMGPWNing Inno the Invincible. It seems that I can't run fast enough nor does vanish save the day when you run up to the skulled alliance flight master and stab him in the face. Needless to say little hordie Inno did not fare well from my auto-pilot ways. I've learned a lesson to pay a little bit more attention to my surroundings and where I'm actually going to click.

In closing I finally made it to Un'goro crater and began the quest for the venomhide mount. He's a greedy little dino. So about 2.5-3 "days" leveling and I am finished with the level 40-50 slump and should start seeing an increase in my leveling. I will probably queue for random instances as I'm leveling but I might just wait till I'm level 58 and queue for Ramps. Anyway wish me a happy leveling experience as it will probably be over soon.

Technical Difficulties

2010-06-04T13:18:00.005-08:00

Part 2 of Pixel Perception and You coming soon...

Pixel Perception and You

2010-06-03T06:29:00.007-08:00

...last time we found big Inno spending some time making items for little hordie Inno. So little hordie Inno was transferred to the current server where I reside and has some really useful BoA gear. There's a lot of history to little Inno but I'll only bore you with a minor history lesson. Little Inno is the first toon that I ever played. Things looked so much different back then. I was a new player to WoW and little Inno was a green orc named Innoculate. I did a little bit of PvP and other fun activities. I was so lost to the game. I went online and read many articles about how questing was not as good as grinding to get XP to level therefore I spent time either running to instance portals or grinding on mobs. My friends chose to change servers and factions and asked me to come along. I told them that I didn't really want to play Alliance but I'd give it a try after I completed my current goal of getting my wolf mount. I struggled the next few levels earning gold (grinding mobs for rocks if I recall correctly) to get to level 40 and buy my first mount. Ding level 40 and I've reached my goal. Finally I was able to buy my first mount. I rode recklessly through the woods with the wind on my head (I think my orc was bald or only had a plug or two of hair therefore no "wind in my hair statement). Nice, this is fun. Well I did tell my friends that I'd go over to their new server and start a new account with them.

So I rolled this nightelf rogue and came up with a super original name of Innoculate. Again I started off like I knew how to play and was grinding mobs and doing the occasional instance...blah blah blah, so seven level 80s later there is this looming Cataclysm of summer and some new expansion which are causing blahs to take over my outlook on WoW but along with this comes fond memories of my first toon. I look up my original toon and decide to bring it to my new home. I spend some money to bring Innoculate over to my current server...

...Little hordie Inno suffered some sort of transportation malfunction and is now known as Innoculated and has annoyingly bouncy bloodelf ears.... Armed with a pocketful of nostalgia I log onto little Inno and start pulling in my BoA items. Holy pixels, what the hell is this gear that I'm wearing and why do I have some cloth gear in my bags?

Good thing I did send that BoA stuff over. Okay so I'm playing around, looking for where I should be instancing as a hordie and decide that I'll queue for a battleground while I get my bearings. Okay I'm in Arathi Basin and it's different. I'm on the other side but I can do this. Random /bg chat comes up "lol! noob! lolz @ normal mount". Huh? Okay, what's that mean? Following the group and I'm wondering why everyone is pulling so far away from me... Oh, now I get it I'm the lolz noob. It seems that I'd forgotten that my epic accomplishment those many years ago was to just get a normal run of the mill mount at level 40. I even remember complaining about how much that used to suck. Good news is that today I can easily go buy a new mount without grinding for months to afford the pixels to purchase faster pixels. Strike One.

Now I've got a revved up super fast pink chicken of doom (SF-COD) that bounces around so much it makes the floppy bloodelf ears bearable. I'm very happy to have that SF-COD and here's why. #1 I'm a guy. #2 I'm totally lost. #3 I can't ask for directions and #4 I really hate the 40-50 leveling range. I think that I blank out sections of time when any of my toons had to do this range. My only time not hating it was when I changed off runs with a friend running instances over and over swapping 70s or 80s with our lowbies (Svenn is not that friend, he has some sort of aversion to running instances that aren't at level...well I think he'll run Grayce, but I can't complain about him maintaining some sort of marital harmony). So I end up running around not knowing where my next big quest hub should be for a day or so. While I'm running around like a blue chicken with my head cut off I queue up as DPS (obviously) and try a few randoms. I'm so lost that I get the opportunity to run more than one instance. I'm Inno the rogue and I know how to play my rogue, this should be good. Well I get to run Mara colored runs (btw if you die it's a pain to make your way back if you're me...it's not that I don't know where I'm going, but when everything looks grayish white it's hard to determine if you're going down the purple or orange entrance).

As I stated I know how to play my class but that didn't help out much as the other players did not want to listen to each other nor did they wish to get along. Tanks in healing gear, healers in tanking gear, dps in no gear it was all super exciting stuff. I encountered a few groups that put a little faith back in humanity, but only a little as most groups were a quick run to get the random dungeon "quest" finished so they can get that bag of loot at the end. I did encounter a very funny group at a higher level and will post that pic here as there was some sort of CoT time-warp thing that happened. Regardless of whether the few randoms were good players or not I was miffed. Not at the players as I only have myself to blame if I hang out with people that are making me miserable...but at my rogue tool-kit.
I'm up in the air on whether I think it's a good idea to play another toon of the same class as you've already leveled. A plus side is that you know what you're doing (unless you're a raidtard, but I haven't encountered tons of those at this level...they might have 80s but that can't pull the same silly antics). You can control your character and you are very familiar with the ins and outs of your class. The down side is that I DO know my character class...at level 80...not so much at level 40. I have the fisher-price tool belt of tools to use right now. They're not what I'm used to. I get annoyed when something isn't working as I expected since I KNOW what it's supposed to do. Wrong! What do you mean there's not a silence effect to my garrote? Why am I even stealthing then? I'm just a Sinister Strike button masher (I'm still recovering from bear tanking carpal tunnel). I might need to Vanish if I somehow jump threat (it's difficult at times to quickly change targets to focus on what the tank is hitting, but I do try. I refuse to do a tankonlyfocustargetstartattacksinisterstrike macro. Well that and the fact that I did mention that I hate this level range and I wasn't all that excited about the gear that I had from my former newbie rogue days. (Quick note: Speaking of gear, it's very OP to go into an instance at proper level with a group that's in some sort of BoA gear. It feels like cheating too, but I approve anyway). I am begining to wonder if I should have even picked this toon back up. Maybe I should have just kept the fond memories. Oh well I'll continue trying to find quest hubs somewhere around. I think there might be something in Feralas or some such place....

A little help from my friends

2010-06-02T07:18:00.010-08:00

Its no secret that Svenn needs some motivation from time to time, and lately it seems the WoW community in general could use a bit as well. From a slew of bloggers shutting down shop to Guild runs (with plenty of progression yet to be accomplished) needing to PuG out a few spots to fill, from the arrival of summer to the pending arrival of Cataclysm, things seem to be slowing down and thinning out. The Misadventures has not been immune to these effects, and it has become clear that with a new baby and a full plate of visitors scheduled for the summer (why does no one come visit Svenn in the winter....oh wait, its -20 in Alaska), Svenn needs some help.

While he could make use of exciting opportunities such as this offer from Katie in all its generic glory...

to: cptsvenn@gmail.com
date: Tue, May 25, 2010 at 12:17 AM
subject: Guest post for your blog
mailed-by d.ss37.on9mail.com
signed-by ss37.on9mail.com
hide details May 25 (8 days ago)

Hello,
Having looked at your site and enjoyed it's content, I am contacting you because the published articles are well written, informative and hit the quality levels that we aim our service at. I particularly enjoyed the variety of blogs and I would like to do a related guest post for your site. We offer free, high quality webcontent in exchange for posting a link on you site. This free, bespoke post would usually be around 500 words in length and normally come with a picture, however we will of course work to your requirements - if you do not like the article we write for you just send it back to us. All we ask for in return is that you allow us to include a link to one of our websites in or under the body of the text. We will pay you 30 € for posting the article with the link on your site. We will deliver to you:High quality copy from an experienced writerUnique content
An article directly related to your site/blogIf you are interested in us supplying you with a free high quality article for your blog or if you have any questions or queries please email me using this address or you can call me on +[removed]

I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Katie

A far better, far less generic offer has come along.

Meet Inno. You have seen him around here before, maybe dressed as a cow, or perhaps masquerading as sad chicken. Anyways, not only has Inno volunteered his time and talent to keep things going here at The Misadventures, but he has also come up some interesting ways ways to help fight the WoW blahs that seem to be plaguing so many of us these days.

Welcome to the team, can't wait to see what you have in-store for us.....Rogues posting on a Pally site, what will become of us!?! :)

Beta Testing Buddies

2010-05-27T13:21:00.011-08:00

Svenn and Inno have been Beta Testing the new Remote Auction House for about a week now. Here are some initial thoughts….

We have compiled a selection of the various screens and functions available to the user through the remote AH interface (click the image below to enlarge). Each menu or function in the below picture has a number in the upper left corner which corresponds to the same numbered paragraph of the walkthrough (for ease of viewing and reduce the amount of real-estate which would otherwise be used posting multiple separate screenies).

Walkthrough:
The graphic interface is pretty intuitive and as such, easy to use.
1. Enabling the Remote AH function adds an additional option to your menu (highlighted).
2. Toggeling the Auction House button brings you to the Remote Auction House. Here your AH menu options are listed as well as the option to choose your faction AH or the Neutral AH.
3. At the create Auction screen you have the option to draw items from your bank, bags, and mailbox to post on the AH. Note: you cannot access your guildbank so, items you wish to post from your gbank will need to be moved into your bags/ personal bank (mailing them to yourself also works).
4. Sold Auctions screen, collect your lootz!
5. My Auctions allows for easy navigation through your auctions. The Ended Auctions option enables you to easily repost expired auctions while remembering your last listing prices.
6. Character Selection Screen; I have included this simply because, by changing your “main” on this screen, you can post auctions from any of your characters (as well as viewing how much gold you have on each character).

Viewpoints:
Svenn. While the Remote AH is fun to play around on, I’m not sure it will be worth paying for the premium service. I don’t do enough AH business to justify the added expense, and anyone with an industry probably needs to log-in to craft anyway. (Also, as of this beta, there are no batch posting or scan functions which most players with industry find invaluable; understanding that those functions are provided in-game through 3rd party addons.) Given the general pushback from the WoW community at large to RMT and the increasing capitalization of the game, Blizzard would do well to extend the 25 free transactions from the beta test to all accounts while also offering the pay-for-premium service with unlimited transactions to those hardcore AH enthusiasts. In this way, they can avoid appearing overly greedy while still increasing revenue. That being said, this beta has been a great way for Svenn to catch up on all those pesky banking chores that keep piling up without having to dedicate time to sit down at a computer to log in.

Inno. What do I like about this app? Instantly claiming gold from your mailbox. Gone are the days of opening each and every delivery in your mailbox (I don’t run postal). You can post from your chosen toon no matter where you are logged. Items can be posted from your bags, bank, and even items sitting in your mail. This has come in handy for me as I am leveling a new hordie (my other toons are alliance). I can stop in the middle of nowhere and log off, post all the items in my bags that I don’t need to the AH, then log back in and continue my grind.

Another way this has been helpful is by allowing me to log out at a quest giver if they require some sort of “white” item. “No sir, I cannot hand you 15 silk cloth through the outhouse door…all these mobs only drop mageweave…” A quick log out and I’ve purchased 15 silk cloth from the AH that are instantly available when I log back in.

What don’t I like about this app? I don’t like the interface to select your toon that will utilize the Remote AH. Initially I kept getting an armory error (My alliance banker is a level 3 character.) It wasn’t until I came home from work one day when my 10 year old son said, “Hey Dad, here’s how you can select Zombiecat”. This was of course followed by a “No you can’t!” to which he said, “No, look. Here, I’ll show you” (see Step 6 above). Glad I had my 10 year old around to show an old man how it’s done or I wouldn’t have tried this app out :)

Gundther Goes to Northrend

2010-05-26T07:20:00.003-08:00

Waaay back in January Svenn posted a poll as to which class to level next; Warrior won and Gundther was promoted from banker to alt (“once a tank - always a tank” I suppose). As Inno alluded to in his guest post, Svenn has been quietly leveling Gundther between raids and real life commitments…not quite the fast grind to 80 he envisioned back in Jan.

Anyways, this being the 7th toon to make the march to 80, Svenn decided to level a bit differently. A lot of the inspiration for this came from Vidyala, frequent commenter and mastermind behind the Pugging Pally. While Gundther hasn’t limited himself solely to PuGing instances, he’s done far more than he would have otherwise.

At 40 he dual specced to Prot as promised, but quickly found that tanking Fury in defensive stance was more than enough for the pre-outlands instances. Having skipped all but Ramps and Blood Furnace as far as instances go in Outlands, Gundther was ready to jump back into the que upon hitting Northrend. Unfortunately, the full set of craftable cobalt tanking gear that Svenn made, required him to be level 70 to equip. 68-70 flew past and, armed with the quests for UK and Nexus, Gundther entered the que as a no kidding tank for the first time.

I would love to say that, that 1st run was flawless but, the truth of the matter is unfamiliarity with the warrior’s tanking tools made for a few silly mistakes. Even so, it wasn’t that bad (having tanked on the Pally, druid, dk, and even on the ‘lock makes for pretty good muscle memory as far as setting up pulls, etc.). It is a good thing I like UK, as the random dungeon finder proceeded to que me for it 5 more times in a row. In fact, all of lvl 70 was spent in UK; Gundther isn’t sure how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop, but he is sure it takes running UK 6 times to ding 71.

With the new baby keeping me busy, I have had limited play time, so Gundther has been queing for a random each day (hence the UK 6times) which has pretty much been the extent of my online time. This has made for some slow leveling, but has the advantage of piling up badges at 2 a day. As well as netting some fancy blue gear.

So, Gundther is lvl 72 now, sitting on a heap of rested xp and it will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future, creeping along 1 random dungeon at a time (at least until Finn starts a decent sleep schedule). For far more entertaining stories involving leveling through LFG be sure to check out Vid over at the Pugging Pally and remember, “always look on the light side of LFG!”

Monday Montage: Moose!

2010-05-24T07:25:00.009-08:00

Awhile back Svenn used to do a Monday Montage. Due to busyness, distraction, laziness...pick an adjective, he let that slip by the wayside. Anyways, while this may not be a regular feature again, and has absolutely nothing to do with WoW, it is way to cool not to share. A no-kidding ~1100 lb-ish Moose, calved not 1 but 2 calfs IN MY BACK-YARD!!1! For realsies! She is still there, honest (guess she feels safe what with the new baby vibe being thrown off strongly from our house at the moment). Screenshot or it didn't happen! kk:)

Moma and Baby.

Awwww.

Two baby moose..mooses? moosen?

Photos Credit: Grayce, who at great personal risk to herself, climbed atop our compost heap to get a better vantage (approx. 10-15 meters away from the moose!).

EDIT: Thanks to our cat Peavey, who alerted us to the rather large moose in the backyard (guess he figured it was too big for even a hunter of his skill to take down). I'm sure we would have noticed eventually, but his ever watchful prowling made sure Grayce had time to get some photos right after the birth...pretty amazing.

Growing Up Fuzzy

2010-05-19T14:33:00.001-08:00

I've seen them, I've cuddled them and now I've rolled one... Fuzzynip started life off as a secondary bank toon since Zombiecat was stingy with spending money on extra guild tabs to hold all my stuff (she refuses to buy a fourth tab). I finally became bored chasing raids as the times on the server that I play on do not coincide with the time that I am able to play. Six level 80s later and I'm bored. Alright Fuzzy I'll get you some BoA gear (armor, trinkets and weapon) and send you on your way. You know what? Pick up herbalism and alchemy too. I want you to be a flask master to compliment my transmutation specialist. Make me proud Fuzzy!

I won't spend all that long discussing the leveling process. We've all been there and done that. Constant dps + healing = Win! When it looks bad stack HoTs and roll in bear form. Running away? Not an option... but the tools are there. Looting while in flight form? Almost feels like cheating. When it's all said and done, leveling a druid today with BoA gear = way too easy. I swear I gained three to four levels every time I logged off.

My entire leveling experience consisted of kitty fun with the occasional bear form. I dabbled in instances in both kitty and bear form, but the tools at your disposal weren't really there. Instances did help with the transition from 40-50 as I find this the most boring leveling area. As fast as I thought I was leveling I was not prepared for Outlands. I'm pretty sure that I blinked once or twice and it was all over. There was a small delay in hitting Northrend since I decided to backtrack to Azeroth and level herbalism and alchemy from 1/1 to 350/350 before heading off to the frozen North. I encountered another small delay once I hit Northrend since I elected to get epic flight form from the trainer at level 71 instead of questing for the form at level 70. Shadow meld + epic flight form = kiss my tail feathers silly mobs. Did I mention how unfair it is to loot quest items or pick herbs while still in epic flight form.

Ding, 80! Damn, my BoA gear is still nice. I've got some nice quest gear from Icecrown. I'm gonna queue for dps in a heroic! ...WTF?!1!!1! I don't have good enough gear to queue for a heroic?! With nobody to ask for a few gear runs through some heroics I decided to queue as dps in a normal random instance (through a series of events I left my guild when I was throwing a tantrum and didn't have anyone to beg for support). 17 minutes later I gave up and left the queue as dps and changed my selection to include tanking. In the queue for something like 30 seconds and BAM! I'm tanking. Holy hell I haven't tanked before (not really anyway, last bear tanking I did was maybe in my 20s). I think I Svenn said something once about swipe macroed with maul. What? Faerie fire does damage as a bear? Nice. Okay, this instance is over and I received two triumph badges. Didn't I receive two triumph badges when I queued for and instance at level 69? Why yes, yes I did. Okay I'll queue as a tank again since it's fast. Wait a second... I don't get badges for this run? I'm not going to deal with this, especially after people questioning if I'm really a tank. 21K hp not enough for a normal instance? That's silly. (see screenie). Alright, I have have a leatherworker that could use some work. It's time to grab some HPs and become a stamina stacking polar bear.

Alright here we go! I'm off to tank. Five seconds into the instance and here comes the question again (no screenie this time...) "are you really a tank?". Is this guy serious? This is a normal everyday five man heroic.This is where I should be... Anyway here we go... swipe, swipe, maul, maul, shake my fuzzy tail, shout, swipe, swipe... I can see now that bear tanking is going to give me carpal tunnel... More heroics, more badges, more questions (who the hell are these people?). How dare you question my tanking I HAZ A WARRIORZ! comparatively speaking tanking on this bear is tanking on easy mode. Defense Cap? No, I'm not chasing it as I spent a whopping three talent points. I can haz tanking! If you choose to AoE like a mad man then don't worry. Wanna single target nuke something that I'm not tanking to make your dps look better in a heroic? That's okay too. It's very difficult to focus on the mob marked with a raid skull icon. I also understand that your dps is very very important on trash mobs in an instance. It's okay that you have a 5.7k gearscore and the tank and healer have a 2.7k gearscore. I also understand that you question this tank "Hey Fuzzy, OMG, why can't you hold aggro?!". Why do I not have a problem with this? Is it because I have raiding type dps toons? Well yes that is exactly why I understand. I can even go into and instance on my descent dps raiders and not pull threat from the "undergeared" tank. I don't expect to come to his sand box and mke myself feel good since I'm in a heroic when I should be raiding. Is it because I'm a fail tank? Not, it's because I understand that you are truly fail dps as your dps is actually descent. You're just raidtarded. You know it and I know it. It's just easier to hide your fail in a 25 main raid instead of a five man heroic.

Six days into tanking heroics and I'm in full T9. Stamina gems coming out my ears and a little under 40k health. Defense cap not an issue and now the bad news. I have the Bluechicken blues. Fuzzy has tanked up to PoS heroic with little to no effort. The only reason I haven't tried HoR heroic is that Blizz has determined that I need better gear. It's been a fun but it's time for a break. On the seventh day I put Fuzzy down and decided to revisit the horde and see what Innoculated was up to. She needs lots of work so I spent Fuzzy's seventh day farming up some mats and some BoA equipment for hordie side Inno. Silly crusader mats cost way too much for how simple they are to come by. I also harassed Svenn to help mule some money over to the horde side for me. Nice loss of gold using the neutral AH (15% cut). After selling one gold plated thistle tea my hordie will be able to afford dual spec and epic flying.

I will hit up Fuzzy again soon. I did receive some "nice tanking" comments the other day from from raid geared players. These guys were not raidtards and actually wanted me to tank another instance for them. I can't complain as they had allowed me to chain pull a few instances as they effortlessly mowed down the mobs. I will write updates for Fuzzy if anything catches my attention, but I prefer to see what Svenn's thoughts are on his up and coming Warrior. You all remember the voting poll right? Well a warrior was voted for his next toon and it's creeping up to level 80.

A Quiet Moment

2010-05-18T06:48:00.003-08:00

Has it really been over a month since I last posted? Yipes! Things at work have finally slowed down, the snow is finally off the ground, and Finn finally made his long awaited appearance!

Late nights raiding have been replaced with late night feedings, daily dungeons replaced with diapers, and writing blog posts replaced with writing shopping lists. Anyways, it is awesome being a Dad yet again and with a few more spare moments gained each day as Finn starts sleeping more, Svenn will be getting back into the swing of things again here at the Misadventures...if there is anyone left reading. Thankfully, Inno has been kind enough to provide some post(s) to help get the ball rolling again, so look for that in the near future :)

Noblegarden Number

2010-04-08T14:31:00.004-08:00

As sung to the tune of "Bodies" by Drowning Pool

Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor

Beaten to the egg, why for?
Can’t take much more
Another Holiday here we go, here we go now

ONE, nothing wrong with me
TWO, that’s my egg you see
THREE, bunny form -speedy
FOUR, cause I am greedy

ONE, something’s got to give
TWO, cause I just can’t live
THREE…hundred and ten mount speed
NOW!

Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let the bunnies hit the floor

Push me again (again)
I wish this was the end
Still a Holiday left, here we go, here we go now

ONE, nothing wrong with me
TWO, achies left you see
THREE, ten mount -speedy
FOUR, cause I am needy

ONE, something’s got to give
TWO, cause I just can’t live
THREE…hundred and ten mount speed
NOW!

Let the bunnies hit the floor x ~1,000

Egg to egg, zone to zone
You’re all by yourself but you’re not alone
You wanted in and now you’re hear
Driven by Blizz to get a bunny ear

Let the bunnies hit the floor
Let me at the eggs, I need 5 more
Let the bunnies hit the floor
This Holiday is a real snore

ONE, nothing wrong with me
TWO, just fast mount envy
THREE, this song is gettin’ silly
FOUR, yay for the bunny

ONE, last Holiday song
TWO, and it won’t be long
THREE, Fire Fest and the mount, ZOMG!

Let the bunnies…etc.

Vuhdo Viewings and Guild Firsts

2010-03-31T07:22:00.010-08:00

I have been meaning to post some screenies of vuhdo ever since I first posted about making the switch from Healbot over a month ago...

Well, a lot has happened since then but I now, finally, have gotten around to uploading some. Rather than just bore you with a bunch of random shots or walls of text about what I have been up to, I figured I would let the screenies tell the story and, as a picture is worth a thousand words, do both at once :)

I love how I can separate toons out by role in Vuhdo. We don't use 7 healers for Saurfang as it shows here, but once I assign healers to that role, it doesn't always switch them when they go DPS for a specific fight. You can change the max number of toons per group- I went with 8 as that is what currently fits in my available screen real estate and still allows me to see my character. (1st wing of ICC cleared 25man woot!)

Here you can see some of the HoT icons still up. Each HoT is assigned a different part of the bar to show up on, I have my HoTs set to show up as squares (numbers inside the square indicate time remaining on the HoT), and living seed procs to show as a circle. Debuffs and such have a little fly-in type animation for quick identification for removal, and my stacking HoT (Life Bloom) shows white (1 stack), yellow, or green (2 stacks and full stacked respectively). This set up really adds to my situational knowledge and helps me make faster decisions on which heal to throw next. (Rotface, and Festergut (not pictured) down 10man style)

And I shall leave you with this... (10 man) Blood Princes down! Gratz to all involved in this guild first kill. Forget the Blood Queen, I want to heal me a big green dragon next!

Friday Fun

2010-03-26T15:27:00.006-08:00

Grayce finally got her "Mechano-Hog"....

Biker Babe Alert!!!

(Thanks Fey for hooking it up)

Exclusivity

2010-03-23T11:48:00.003-08:00

Svenn’s departure from FIST has sparked some interesting discussion on the topic of the “all or nothing” policy in FIST. While he is no longer a participant in that forum, it is of extreme interest to him. There are arguments of merit on both sides of the aisle.

Pros:
1. Avoids the whole “divided loyalties” quandary.
2. There are no schedule conflicts (in-game anyways) with runs from 2 different guilds be scheduled on top of each other.
3. If you are on, you can see gchat- if you can see gchat, you can participate in more spur of the moment guild events.

Cons:
1. If the guild can’t provide what you are looking for, either because of time, size, or ability you are forced to either PuG, pick up and leave, or change what you are looking to do.
2. Outside interaction is limited to mainly PuGs- not the greatest representative cross-section of humanity, which leads to a sort of blindness often seen in isolationists.
3. It encourages guild migration which increases turnover and “gear exodus”. As people develop different wants and needs, (real or perceived) which the guild can’t meet, they leave taking their gear, their toons, and their knowledge with them.

In respects to divided loyalties: I am a member of various different professional organizations, as well as a husband and father, member of social groups, belong to a church, and have a job. As a member I have a say in all of these organizations and can work to de-conflict schedules and planned events in advance. When conflicting obligations arise, and they will, I can make a decision based on an order of priority, convenience, or arbitrarily, whichever I see fit. These decisions rarely have much to do with loyalty (I’m loyal to all of them- else I wouldn’t be in them), but rather have to do with outside factors and usually a compromise can be worked out. With the all or nothing approach, there are no compromises and I guess in the end, that’s the point.

This is NOT an open invitation to bash on FIST; I am still very much connected to the guild and would like to remain so if possible. I am however, interested in what others have to say about the “all in/ all out” policy. I am quite sure I am far too close to the problem to weigh all the factors impartially. I know I am missing some piece(s) of the equation, but I hope for my part- this policy changes (as my friend's guild has no such policy).

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2010-03-22T11:01:00.005-08:00

Has it been a week since my last post already? Much has happened since March 12 (the last time I posted apparently), and I will bore you now with all of it :)

There have been some radical changes going lately, from Tam’s gquit, to Gelvon’s newest experiment, to Vid’s stunning transformation of her Dranaei into something a bit toothier; and Svenn has been no exception. Over the course of the last month I have transformed from “I must tank on everything including my hunter and warlock guy” to “I have teh epic healz guy”. While this change has come naturally and easily to me, it was a small change compared to what transpired along with it…

Svenn has left FIST :( To understand this decision and the process behind it, you have to understand the guild. In FIST it’s all or nothing; there are no half measures so if one lvl 80 goes they all go (this does not apply to lowbie alts outside the guild/ 80s on other servers/faction, just Alliance 80s on EI). It was an extremely difficult decision to make as I really only wanted to move the tree into a friends raiding guild to help out her healer situation, but I understood the rule; FIST deserves complete dedication from its members. I had put so much into the guild, posted countless articles and responses on the guild forums, and even featured various guildies in “spotlights” here on the Misadventures so the parting was necessarily difficult.

As I really like the people that make up FIST, it was equally agonizing on that front as well. FIST was so much more than a “project” that I had worked hard on. It was(is) a network of friends with whom I connected; shared the mundaneness of day to day life as well as the exceptional events of promotions, new babies, etc. To further complicate things, Grayce, Shaara, and Acima (wife, sister, and bro-in-law respectively) are staying in the guild- and why not, it is a great place to be!

I have tried to make as graceful an exit as possible. I have family and friends there that I want to continue to have fun. I want the guild to continue to thrive and, should one day down the road, should a decision be reached which would allow Svenn and his army of Alts back in- I won’t hesitate to jump at the chance to regain my tags.

Grayce has been incredibly supportive in my decision. We have been in different guilds before, but it has been awhile since we weren’t both reading the same green chat. I think she is more disappointed than she lets on, but at the same time she understands my reasons. Of course we still run things together so I can stay connected to FIST through her- that helps a lot.

I still can’t help but feel I have let some folks down, hurt some feelings, and not affected as smooth an exit as I would have liked. Things moved pretty quickly, forcing a decision that was months in the making into the open in a matter of a few days. As one of my fellow officers (former fellow officer now I suppose) pointed out to me though, “It’s OK Grayce is who we wanted anyways.” While that may seem harsh to an outsider, it is emblematic of the character of FIST- not harsh but rather, enduring. FIST was in existence long before Svenn got there and will persist long after Svenn is forgotten, and it will deal with the rough patches with the good spirits and humor that that comment was intended (at least I hope it was humor :).

Gear Score Lamentations

2010-03-12T13:23:00.005-09:00

Yes this is another gear score rant. Like so many others out there, Svenn decries gear score as one of the pervading evils of our time. His reasoning however, differs some from the main complaints- it doesn’t tell you if they can play or not, if they are specced/ gemmed wrong, etc. Those are all true, but that is not what Svenn has a problem with.

In a time before gear score, Svenn assumed that if he performed poorly on the meters he needed more gear. Likewise, he assumed as much of others as well. Occasionally he would inspect other toons to see just what their gear was like to help explain an especially bad performance, but by and large, he too accepted that performance was a function of gear.
Gear score shatters that illusion. There is no way to hide from the little popup box with numbers, be they Red, Orange, Purple, or Blue. Sure Svenn could uninstall the addon, but others would still run it, others who may not be as considerate in their feedback.

The true tragedy is not the mindless “LFM Uld10 must have 5k gear score” spam (though it is completely stupid). No, it lies in the good players who manage their way into a raid with a low gear score, outperform everyone else there relative to their gear score, yet get no recognition. It lies in the quantification of a toon’s worth based on a sum of items assigned values arbitrarily according to lvl. It lies in the loss of innocence we once had, and assigning everyone the benefit of the doubt. That being said…

Mr. Awesome DK lolz Tank,
Thanks for bailing on my group because the gear scores were to low. I would have been the best heals you ever had. The 3.5k gearscore hunter in some ToC/craftable epics and quest blues (Hanka) does ~3K DPS! We finished the run in 16minutes with the next tank in the que. Everyone to include the healer (me) did over 1.5K DPS. I hope your next run went smoothly and took less than a 60 seconds, considering your 15 minute deserter debuff.

With Bubbles and Renews,
Ottar

Penance is for DPSing and last minute saves when I tab back in from /4chan. Silly tank :)

Lunar Fest Lullabies

2010-03-09T11:23:00.005-09:00

As sung to the tune of "Old Man" by Niel Young

Old man look at my log,
I wish I knew where you were.
Oh man look at my life,
Slave to holidays like you were.

Old man look at my count,
Twenty four,
And that’s just Kalimdor.
Live alone in a dungeon,
That makes me que for it too.

Got lost, such a cost.
Give me Atlas addons,
So I don’t get lost.
Like a coin of ancestry that won’t get tossed,
Until this holiday is through.

Oh man take a look at my log,
I’ve got a lot to do.
I need someone in Nexus,
To run me the whole way through,
Ah, one look in my eyes,
And you can tell that’s true.

Omen dies, look in your eyes,
Run around, do the same old quests.
Wouldn’t mean that much to me,
If the mount wasn’t 310 speed.

I’ve got the first and got the last ,
Visiting Elders from the past.
But I’m all done at last.
Hearthing home to you.

RetTreeDiscadin wah!?

2010-03-08T13:45:00.004-09:00

As many of you may have noticed, there has been a distinct slow down on posts here at The Misadventures. Svenn has talked of “burnout” and general apathy he has been feeling towards WoW for awhile now; the constant Heroics grind for badges, the “free” epics which just don’t seem to help some people improve, etc. … None of these ominous reasons (often associated with leaving WoW all together) are to blame for the dearth of posts in recent weeks. In fact the lack of posts is a GOOD thing. Previously, daily postings were fun, because the game simply wasn’t. As Svenn was not having much fun playing WoW, posting about it became more fun than actually playing.

Svenn has found the fun again…as a healer!?! No, Svenn himself does not heal, he is solidly entrenched in the Prot/Ret duality of his life, rather, 2 of his other toons have emerged as favorites. As he has alluded to previously, the tree (Knutsen) has been seeing some significant action healing for a friend’s guild…in 25 mans! Never having raided 20/40 mans in Vanilla/BC, this is an entirely new and exciting experience. They were kind enough to break him in gently on a ToC25 run last week and an Ony25 run earlier this week before jumping into ICC25 last night. And, while probably not all that exciting, Knutsen solo healed a weekly 10 man raid run (Patchwerk) with only 9 in the group, all but 1 or 2 alts, and the “OT/ cleave eater” being a DPS DK converted for the fight to “tank”. It was good fun, and as much of a healing workout as any of the 25 man raids.(Thanks to FIST for believing in me enough to let this recently converted tank try solo healing a raid, even if it was just Patches! :)

The other healer is a bit more surprising. Ottar, Svenn’s first real healer and the toon that first earned him the title “The Grumpy Healer”, has made a reappearance in Heroics. With a conversion to Disc, he is now merrily healing his way to DPS gear. Unlike Knutsen, Ottar can bring the pain while healing, maintaining around 1-1.5k DPS comfortably without slacking on the heals (Note: some tips from Vidalya helped Knutsen DPS while healing too, he’s just not quite as effective at it as Ottar yet). While all the badges are being spent on DPS gear, the incredibly low hit cap for Spriest’s is ideal for multifunctional gear to serve as both Disc and DPS sets.

Some say, “Wow that’s a lot of switching back and forth, ala EmberIsolte’s Altoholic”, but that is yet another source of fun. Trying to keep various classes and spec’s straight and perform well in the marquee positions of tank or heals, puts an element of challenge back into the game. That Svenn is no longer pigeonholed into tanking every run has greatly increased the fun factor. Hopefully, that is a good enough reason to cut back on posts again. Don’t worry though, I haven’t forgotten about the next installment of the Holiday Parody Series, it’s just taking a bit longer for inspiration to strike than normal.

Maximization through Diversification

2010-03-02T16:06:00.014-09:00

So, Svenn has been raiding Ret for all of a week now. The learning curve has been steep though fortunately gearing up has not been a problem as tanking leads to insta-cues and great tanking gear lends itself nicely to fast runs. Over the course of the past week he has discovered some flaws in his spec- as well as some better ways to go about doing business. As he alluded to last week seals, glyphs, and librams make a big difference, so lets get started.

Seals:
There are really only 2 options Seal of Vengance and Seal of Command. Seal of Command is hands down the best bet for AoEing down trash. Its effect procs on multiple mobs after every melee strike as well as all single target abilities such as Crusader Strike and Exorcism. The fact that its proc has a chance to crit truly sets it apart from Seal of Vengance in this situation.

Seal of Vengance on the other hand, yields superior DPS in single target scenarios. The stacking dot hits hard at higher gear levels, and the extra % weapon damage once it reaches the full 5 stacks is nice as well. The glyph associated with this seal (as discussed below) seals the deal for single target Vengance (terrible pun intended:).

With those principles in mind, seal switching based on situation becomes pretty obvious. This applies to tanking as well. With Seal of Command conveniently located in the 3rd tier of the Ret tree (the tree where most of the extra points for a prot pally will be spent anyways), not picking it up is a huge oversight which result in both time and TpS loss.

Glyphs
Glyph switching was a foreign concept to Svenn until he started healing more on his tree- swapping glyphs depending on his role as either raid heals or tank heals. The benefits of re-glyphing are clear for trees, but the concept applies to Pallys as well. Milage out of the glyphs will vary based on situation- hence the concept of glyph switching.

Glyph of Exorcism is the only “Must Have” major glyph for Ret.
Glyph of Seal of Command is nice if you are chain pulling trash or short on replenishment, but overall is not worth giving up a slot for.
Glyph of Crusader Strike, much like the Seal of Command Glyph, is good if you find yourself short on mana, but not a strong overall option.
Glyph of Holy Wrath is indispensable in a place like ICC, but not a huge value in single target fights or places where no undead are present.
Glyph of Judgement is a nice boost in single target fights, but has limited application elsewhere.
Glyph of Vengeance is indispensable for single target fights. While expertise is not a stat worth gemming for, you won’t get better mileage than 10 free expertise out of any of the other options.

As with seals, glyph switching becomes pretty obvious if you are trying to maximize output over the course of a raid. Unlike seals, re-glyphing costs more than just mana- this cost is no more than that of normal raid consumables, and when looked at in that light, is not a big deal. (You can save some cash by buying in bulk, or having an inscriptionist mill your own herbs and make the glyphs for you- letting them keep any rare pigments will more than suffice as a tip for their time and effort.)

Librams:
Untill you are able to get the Frost Badge Libram (either Libram of the Eternal Tower or Libram of Three Truths), libram switching is yet another way to maximize output based on situation.

For Prot Pallies the decision to use Libram of Defiance or Libram of the Sacred Shield is going to be based on whether you want to see larger DPS returns from abilities like Shield of the Righteous and Holy Shield or, if avoidance is more important such as in the Saurfang fight, where dodges can delay the stacking of marks.

For Ret Pallies the choice is far more clear cut. Using Libram of Valiance does not make much sense if you don't have Seal of Vengeance up, in those cases (AoE with SoC up), Libram of Discord outperforms Libram of Valiance despite its lower ilvl and vice versa on single target fights.

Summary:
If you are concerned with squeezing the most performance possible out of your Pally, itemization based on content and role can be achieved cheaply through Seal, Glyph, and Libram swapping without expensive respecs and gem changes.

Not Much of an Intro

2010-02-26T13:07:00.005-09:00

A few nights ago Svenn was asked to tank an ICC 10 run for some friends/ mutual acquaintances. Seems, people were determined to make a liar out of him (see: Monday’s Post). Anyways, it turned out that the position of tank had been overbooked by 1. The other pally tank didn’t feel comfortable with his DPS set, so Svenn was nominated to go Ret. It had been a long time since Svenn did any real Ret DPS, but he tries to keep his offset in good order with proper enchants, gems, etc. and so felt fairly comfortable with the role.

Over the next ten minutes amazing things happened. Svenn looked like a hero, 12k DPS out the gate which normalized around 7k by the time we hit Marrowgar…. which is where it all fell apart (for him, not the raid- which one shotted the boss). While overall DPS numbers still looked pretty strong (5kish), the recount for the boss fight itself showed Svenn ahead of only the 2 tanks in DPS with around a 3.4k output. It was at this point that I realized, Svenn needed to do some work on his single target damage output. In spite of his crummy single target numbers, Lady Deathwhisper also went down, as well as The Gunship Battle (I finally got to see what everyone else has been raving about- it IS fun!). We had wasted some time trying to figure out the weekly (A Rotting Giant), which only one person had done before and no one could understand on Vent when they tried to explain it, but ended on a high note with the Gunship.

All the above is by way of introduction for next week’s post on Maximization through Diversification, where Svenn will look at glyph, seal, and libram switching to maximize single target vs. AoE damage output. Sorry for subjecting you to the ramblings, but Svenn is was pretty excited to finally see past Marrowgar, and to get his own jetpack :)

(Not to be outdone by Svenn, last night the tree saw action in ICC for the first time. I am finding out raid healing is a lot of fun, and it is far easier to see the whole picture and direct the action then it is when you are tanking. They downed Marrowgar and had two very strong attempts at Lady DW before calling it a night.)

The 969 Paladin

2010-02-23T15:59:00.004-09:00

Inno sent me this gem. Notice the Gearscore....

The Quintessential Ret Pally

The answer: 4 years and a lot of weed.

Svenn is a tree?

2010-02-22T15:42:00.005-09:00

It seems Svenn has been put on the shelf for the time being. There are plenty of factors for this: tanking burn out, the refusal to run randoms every day for the 2 Frost Emblems, the explosion of Pally tanks that seems to just keep going and going....

Anyways, since Knutsen made the switch from Healbot to VuhDo (vastly improving the quality of his healing in the process) and put together a halfway decent set of gear, he has been getting a lot more invites lately. Being a tree is surprisingly fun, guess I'll have to give up my [Grumpy Healer] title now. He knocked out the new boss in VoA before Svenn without having to link an achievement (see Larisa's rant on that: HERE), and managed a full clear of ToC 10 with a friend's guild to boot; even getting Yallenna an invite for Anub' Arak when one of the DPS had to leave! Poor Svenn still hasn't seen past Faction Champions in there, though he did finally get his VoA run over the weekend :)

What does all this mean? Well, Svenn is a sucker hybrids for starters, but we knew that. Also, trees may be getting some much deserved love on the blog, but it has and always will remain a Pally Blog.... I think;) Does this count as a "filler" post? Probably, but life gets- you know, "busy and stuff". Svenn has a few posts in various stages of draft and will try and get some "real" content up soon.

Love is in the Air La-la-laas

2010-02-17T15:19:00.008-09:00

Wow! Back to back Holidays really snuck up on me. Here is the latest instalment in the Holiday Parody Collection...up before Love is in the Air is over, even if it didn't beat the start of Lunar Festival.

As sung to the tune of "Addicted to Love" by Tina Turner

The quest is there, when you hearth home
Your mind is not your own
Your body sweats, your mouse hand shakes
Another Holiday is what it takes
There’s no doubt you’re in deep
310 mount, it’s all speed
Another Achievement is all you need
Oh you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff; oh yeah
It’s closer to the truth
You know you’re gonna have to face it
You’re addicted to love
You might as well face it you’re addicted to Holidays

You see the quests, but you can’t read
You’re thinking all about mount speed
Your heart beats, at double time
Cologne Neutralizer to clear the slime
Another kill and the pets mine, a one track mind
To join my group you can’t be saved,
that stupid title is all you crave
Gonna have to face it you’re addicted to love
Might as well face you’re addicted to Holidays

Hummel lights up, you’re AFK
Your neutralizer buff has gone away
You hit the floor and now you’re dead
Blame the heals and shake your head
You can’t sleep, you can’t eat
Another day, ‘till quest repeat
Bracelet prices so high, you can’t breath
But one more is all you need
Oh you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff; oh yeah
It’s closer to the truth
You know you’re gonna have to face it
You might as well face it
You’re addicted to Holidays

Thanks to Inno for his song suggestion. The theme to "The Love Boat" was just to short to make it workable, would have been perfect if it had a few more verses to parody. Speaking of song suggestions, Lunar Festival is here so send in your ideas for the next holiday parody.

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T12:38:00.003-09:00

Today is the last day of Mardi Gras, typically marked by a finale of excess before the starting of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, some habit or object is given up or abstained from during the Lenten period (40 days). While this can range from fast food- to cancer causing cigarettes to anything in between, it usually focuses on something that may be unhealthy in some way shape or form. To that end, Svenn thought it might be fun to give up one of his WoW habits for Lent… no, not give up WoW or the blog- he doesn’t have that kind of commitment, though maybe he should.

Anyways, a few of the ideas he had were to:

1. Give up doing Dailies- as I am terrible at doing them anyways (still haven’t finished the Argent Tourny on a single toon), that seemed kind of hollow.

2. Give up grinding Frost Badges- again, I am terrible at getting the “daily” random done on more than 1 of my 6 80s on any given night, so still pretty hollow.

3. Give up leveling the 4 remaining Svenn Alts- I have been enjoying running low level randoms with Grayce so, while tempting, I don’t want to pass up the opportunity to continue that.

4. Give up Raid Leader/ Class Lead responsibilities- Uh, yeah I guess- but I talk too much so no one makes Svenn the RL anyways, and class lead is a nebulous concept in FIST and as such won’t really be missed :)

5. Give up sneaking in a quick log-on while the kiddos are watching their movie before bad time- I usually get on while they are otherwise occupied to take care of banking chores, daily transmutes, etc. I made a commitment not to “play” while they are awake, yet somehow justify this pre-bed log-in (as if I don’t get as caught up in posting on the AH and watching my total gold count rise as I do tanking a quick heroic or 2….or 3) as harmless.

6. Stop playing before Midnight!- I usually get up between 4:45-5:15ish (AM) to get to the gym (I’m on my own PT program in my current assignment, yay for no formations for awhile!), so staying up past midnight hurts my motivation the next morning.

7. Give up Tanking- This is really tempting. I have been feeling pretty burnt out on tanking for awhile. Svenn tanks every serious raid, Knutsen (the drood) tanks daily/ weekly runs, Cromm had a side project lock tanking heroics for awhile (people don’t seem to have the patience for that anymore), the DK tanks PuGs to collect some gear on occasion, even the Hunter was lvled as an experiment in reaching the defense cap while wearing mail (more on that in a later post).

With 1, 2, 3, and 4 out, and #7 landing in the “hurting the guild more than it would benefit Svenn” category, I think I will focus on 5 and 6. Sorry AH chores, you’ll have to wait until the weekend when the rest of my housekeeping gets done. And, it can’t be that hard to /wave goodnight before the clock rolls over to a new day, can it? CAN IT!?!?

Anyways, those are Svenn’s ideas for Lent, are you giving up anything?

Information Theory, Part 2

2010-02-10T15:01:00.010-09:00

Information Theory vs. Communication Theory

A couple days ago, Svenn started a post inspired by a commenter on another blog he reads (written by a certain controversial goblin). In a continuation of that, today's post will look further at the application of information theory to emergent MMOs, specifically WoW.

Information Theory: Field of mathematics that studies the problems of signal transmission, reception, and processing. It stems from Claude E. Shannon's mathematical methods for measuring the degree of order (nonrandomness) in a signal, which drew largely on probability theory and stochastic processes and led to techniques for determining a source's rate of information production, a channel's capacity to handle information, and the average amount of information in a given type of message.

In layman's terms, information theory is concerned with the reduction of system entropy as well as the preservation of data: "did the complete message get from the sender to the recipient with no loss?" This concern is not limited by nor linked to the importance of the message, just that the message arrives at the right location without degredation. Thus: "Hello fellow PuGers, I will be your tank today." is assigned the same value as "Don't stand in the fire you slackjawed daffodils!" Clearly the first statement is a banality, while the second statement is an important observation which carries life or death consequences. However, in terms of information theory it is that the message is transmitted in its entirety, not the content of the message, that is important.

Furthermore, to preserve signal (message) transmition, the application of channel coding, lossless data compression, and source coding can be applied- ensuring greater information (byte) integrity and contributing to the entropy reduction of the system.

So then, how does this concern someone that is looking to help someone improve their performance, such as the Spell Power DK (SPDK) from Monday's post? Svenn will come back around to this later tying it in with Communication Theory, but in and of itself it is analgous to choosing to /whisper to inform your SPDK buddy that he is misguided in his gem choice vice choosing /2 to transfer the same message. The whisper is a direct channel between sender and reciever and subject to far less "signal" loss than transmitting the same message traffic in the trade channel (Obviously this is a very cursory look at the immediate application- and not a hugely useful one at that, but it will suffice for the time being).

Communication Theory on the other hand takes a different take at much the same set of issues, see below.

Communication Theory: the discipline that studies the principles of transmiting information and the methods by which it is delivered (as print or radio or television etc.); Communication is the production and exchange of information and meaning by use of signs and symbols. It involves encoding and sending messages, receiving and decoding them, and synthesizing information and meaning. Communication permeates all levels of human experience and it is central to understanding human behavior....

While Information Theory ignores, or rather ascribes no value to intentionality, tone, or urgency to a message (as long as the information (bytes) are transmitted with little to no loss and system entropy is reduced), Communication Theory holds the opposite view; as long as the 'meaning' or 'intent' of the message is transmitted the preservation of the bytes is unimportant.

Coming back to our poor SPDK; applying Communication Theory, Svenn can launch into a 20 minute disertation on the virtues of gemming for strength over SP, half of which can be lost in the general tomfoolery of trade chat and still be sucsessful if at the end of it SPDK understands that SP is better left to the Priests and that strength is good for him. Even though SPDK got only got a partial message (unsucessful from an Information Theory standpoint), he is better off than he was, netting at least a partial reduction in entropy.

Furthermore, in Communication Theory, the 'tone' in which the message is delivered will determine in part whether it is successfully transmitted. While no actual signal/ byte loss (as defined by information theory) may occur, there may still exist signal loss. This is due in part because the receiver decoding and synthesizing the information and meaning can arrive at a different message on his own than what was intended by the sender. He may receive all the 'bytes' but extrapolate from them and arrive at a conclusion which may exclude the information contained in the bytes. Example:

Sanctimonius Svenn: message sent "SP is for Priests, are you a priest? No! You want Strength...Noobsauce."

SPDK: message received "original text" received message decoded and synthezied "Svenn is a Jerkface, he has no life>:["

Contrast the above with:
Supernice Svenn: message sent "Sir, I believe you may want to try gemming for strength. While SP appears an attractive option as many of your abilities read like spells and do frost and shadow damage- this is misleading. They are modified by your Attack Power and you may find Strength to give you a better bang for your buck:) ::/puppies, hearts, rainbows, butterflies, etc.::"

SPDK: message received "original text" received message decoded and synthesized "SP bad, strength good ::instant /man crush on Svenn::"

Conclusions:
Reliance solely on Information Theory ensures that all the bytes of information are transmitted without signal degradation, but fails to address the informational synthesis that occurs upon reception. So, the original commenter's positing that "A person either wants to learn or doesn't want to learn.There is no such thing as 'wants to learn but doesn't want to learn if bad words are used'. That's not an excuse, that's idiocy." holds true for Information Theory but not for Communication Theory. In the same way, reliance solely on Communication Theory may ensure the salient points of your argument are received and synthesized properly, but will result in an imperfect byte transfer and incomplete knowledge of the subject.

By establishing a threshold of acceptability, say 75% of all bytes transferred and synthesised properly, you can be sure of satisfying in no small part the requirements of both theories, each of which bears relevance on the topic at hand. Mainly, that your SPDK friend will no longer gem Spell Power and has a fairly good idea why.

Information Theory, Part 1.5

2010-02-09T13:13:00.001-09:00

It is exceedingly hard to write about Information Theory when your computer keeps telling you...

I don't have a network support team! I don't even have a team! It's just me! Anyways, Svenn will try and get Part 2 out tomorrow:)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Information Theory, Part 1

2010-02-08T13:05:00.004-09:00

Disclaimer: Svenn lifted this from the comments section of a recent post on The Greedy Goblin. It was posted anonymously, so credit goes to anon. Whomever you are, thanks for the fodder!

While the post itself was just another weekly instalment of a feature called "Mean Guys of the Week", the comment section held some pearls of wisdom. (Most of the comments had to deal with someone trying to help out a DK with Spell Power gems socketed.) I highlighted the some of the parts that stuck out to me as relevant for performance enhancement regardless of venue, that is to say with application to any endeavor, WoW related or not.

A person either wants to learn or doesn't want to learn.There is no such thing as 'wants to learn but doesn't want to learn if bad words are used'. That's not an excuse, that's idiocy.
I'd rather be in a group with 4 other elitist jerks that know how to play, or at least aren't afraid to learn when help is given, than 4 friendly nice pplz who behave like they're level 15 in Deadmines and go ballistic when you even closely suggest that anything they do is suboptimal.

You know why elitist jerks are so competent at the game? It's because they have thick skin, are not afraid to ask for advice, and when advice is given they are willing to get to the heart of the issue instead of tiptoe around it, despite it being put in less than pleasant terms.

No one wants to hear: "Bloody noob, don't stay in the flame patch." A good player will recognize that he is a noob and will not sit in the flame patch. A bad player will go "WAH ELITIST BASTARD" and ignore the advice.

Thus, from this point of view it's better to be an 'eternal noob' and recognize your predilection to failure....

Also, I fail to see where helpful=nice equivalency comes from.

In information theory, information is defined as a quantity that reduces entropy of a system when introduced in that system.

Helpful=informative. (carries information that helps reduce entropy).

Nice or mean = non-informative. (I can talk in a nice way and beat around the bush all day without adding a single byte of information in the system: See: politicians, lawyers.)

Thus nice (or mean for that matter) is neither necessarily nor sufficiently equivalent to informative.

While I don't necessarily agree 100% with the whole rant, it was a pretty good start to unpacking learning systems in an MMO context. Tomorrow, Svenn will dig further into how to affect skill progression positively, while avoiding negative effects socially (ie. how to help people be better versions of themselves without coming off as a total jerk).

Groundhog Day

2010-02-04T12:15:00.003-09:00

February 2 is celebrated in the US as Groundhog day (except in Alaska where Svenn is, where it is celebrated as Marmot Day instead- there being no groundhogs in the state due to its extreme winter climates). On this day a prognosticating rodent is brought forth to determine whether or not he can see his shadow. If the groundhog sees his shadow; 6 more weeks of winter, if not; winter will soon be at an end (again the exception being Alaska where winter is pretty much guaranteed for another 2months regardless:).

Groundhog Day is also the name of a classic Bill Murray movie in which the main character, Phil Connors, is stuck reliving the same day (2 February) over and over again. Over the course of the movie, Phil moves from various forms of suicide attempts to self reflection to seeking out ways to help others, bettering himself, and gaining the love of his costar. He has limitless options, and while some his time is wasted in reckless pursuits, some of it is spent in quiet reflection, and he spends a good deal of it learning to do things such as play the piano, ice sculpt, and speak a foreign language. In the end, Phil is able to break free of the cycle only after he changes his life for the better. The popularity of this movie stems in part from people’s ability to identify with Phil Connors- stuck in rut, each day appearing much the same as the day before.

Sound familiar? WoW is an almost perfect parallel to the movie. Death posses few repercussions and is easily over come. There is no meaningful progression of time, though one can argue that patches and raid progression mark its passing somewhat. Time can be spent in the game in a wide variety of ways, some reckless, some contemplative, and some learning- but each day remains unchanged in its essence. Hogger will be back tomorrow no matter how many times Svenn kills him today. Instance locks will expire overnight, and even Raids and Wintergrasp Quests will reset at the end of the week. The only thing that changes, the only lasting impression that is made is on the player controlled character.

The question is; how do you approach your WoW Groundhog Day? Do you see it as a way to pursue silliness in the absence of consequences or a mindless repeating existence, a daily grind for the next badge or piece of tier gear? Or, do you see it as an opportunity for self improvement, a vehicle for introspection, a shot at love? Is it something altogether different?

Speeeeed Runnn!!!

2010-02-02T09:40:00.007-09:00

Svenn has talked previously about speed tanking Heroics, so its no surprise that he was involved in yet another speedy feat. What is a surprise, is that he was healing on Knutsen when it occurred.

I zoned into UK, was greeted by a /p "hello tree, buff enroute". The tank then commenced to pull. I thought to myself, "oh great, another go-go-go PuG", but decided to grin and bear it- confident I could heal through just about anything in the cakewalk that is UK.

Seven minutes later it was all over. /p "thanks tree, dropping". 7 Minutes!

Turns out (as I gleaned info on quick mouseovers of the party while running frantically to keep up), the other 4 were all from the same server/guild and all had gear scores in the 5.3-5.4k range. They moved with the precision of a Swiss watch, and I was grateful I got to come along for the ride.

I'm sure there is some disbelief out there, I could hardly believe it myself and I was there. For those skeptics, I have taken the liberty of unpacking some of the art and the science involved in the run. Also, there's a screenie!

The Art:
The tank (warrior) took the most efficient route through the instance. Every pull was clean, unbroken, and flowed naturally into the next one. The initial pull cleared the whole entrance way, and the stragglers followed the tank into the main forge area where the next two groups were dropped in quick succession- forcing down the flame walls. The "stables" area was done with 2 pulls (which again flowed smoothly together), with the tank threading a perfect line down the center of the room, leaving both sides alone and unaggroed.

The next two groups were pulled together into the room with the boss, which was picked up as the AoE was downing the last of the mobs from the previous 2 pulls- he was down in 22seconds. The next hallway was pulled all the way to the stairs where, once down, engineering rocketboots, etc. were activated (glad I remembered to switch to cat and activate dash). Groups I didn't think possible to be skipped were bypassed along the second set of steps (I prowled for fear of accidental aggro, probably the only time I was out of combat the entire run).

The second boss was down before I could blink, and the remaining groups were pulled into Ingvar, who took the longest to kill due to the set piece during his tradition to his undead state. All in all, the run was as much a thing of beauty as any run lasting only 7 minutes can be.

The Science:
Still disbelieving what happened, I went back and did some research, here is what I came up with...Warning: this involves Math!

DPS 1 -5317 DPS
DPS 2 -4996 DPS
DPS 3 -4015 DPS
Tank - 1957 DPS
Healer -4 DPS
Total: 16289 damage per second (average)

7 minutes = 420 seconds. @16289 DPS = 6841380 total damage done.

The 6.8 million figure assumes that all DPS were always in combat (total damage done would have been more useful data, but alas I didn't screenshot that), total out of combat time was probably about 20seconds over the course of the 7 minute run ~4% of the time, so that total damage done number drops to somewhere around 6567725.

Having no way to calculate the exact amount of health for each mob engaged (at least in any practical way while flying through the instance) I calculated the bosses Hps as guideline to see how much of the total damage would be left for the mobs.

Prince Keleseth, 403200 Hp
Skarvald/Dalronn combined, 417056 Hp
Ingvar both phases, 247627 Hp
for a grand total of 1315510 Health Points.

This leaves a little over 5.25 million damage left for the trash....that's a lot of trash!

And there you have it, the 7 minute UK run....oh, and the screenie I promised too, notice the buff up-time (upper left), and that's after looting, teleporting out, and chatting about the run in guild chat for a bit too :)*

Warrior Wins!

2010-02-01T08:46:00.005-09:00

Polls closed over the weekend with Warrior winning in a comparative landslide. The tally stood at:
Warrior- 9 votes
Shammy- 5 votes
Mage- 4 votes
Rogue- got 1 late vote so it wouldn't feel completely left out.

With the results all but secured as of last weekend, Svenn trotted out his Warrior Gundther to get to work. Long the bank toon for Svenn, there was some logistics involved in transferring massive amounts of junk, bank guild transfer, real guild invite for Gundther, and standing up another bank toon to take over AH operations.

Decked in heirloom gear and random greens, Gundther was able to plow to lvl 30 hardly venturing far from Stormwind. Between Xp from Battlegrounds and targeted use of the LFG tool (random always seemed to put me in some group halfway through Gnomer with no way to get to them due to fast respawn times and patrols) leveling seems like a totally different game.

Gundther did some experimentation with tanking with a two hand weapon (Heirloom piece with Crusader Enchant) full Fury talents for the health returns. It seemed to work out fine for the low level stuff, though misses caused aggro troubles on a few pulls. Once he hits 40, he will dual spec and build a proper tanking set (I just can't see doing it now and grinding out the next 10 levels prot...I already did that once on Svenn).

While He is not looking forward to the next 50 levels, the changes made to leveling should make this grind the fastest yet....here's hoping anyways :)

Subtly in Text

2010-01-29T07:45:00.002-09:00

The problem I often find myself running into when writing for this blog lies in the conveyance of my message. I will write something, go back and read it and wind up adding multiple qualifiers (that’s what’s up with all the parenthetical statements btw). Even then, I may or may not be satisfied that the article conveys my meaning in such a way that limits its reading to the specific interpretation it was meant for in my head.

Understanding that words “mean things” is only of value if everyone reading them also understands them, and has read their meanings in the same Dictionary you did. Still, English is not nearly as precise a language as some of its predecessors from which it draws it vocabulary.

English has 1 word for love: love.

Greek has 4-5 words for love:
Eros (intimate love),
Philia (brotherly love/ friendship),
Agape (general affection),
Storge (natural affection/ parental love),
Thelema (desire or will).

This lack of precision compounds the problem of clarity in the written word, which can often be overcome in spoken word through such techniques as the application of tone and cadence. Sarcasm springs to mind as a prime example of this. Thusly, written word is subject to further interpretation and as such more susceptible to reader perception- “Perception is Reality”. This can easily result in mixed messages, artificial escalation of tensions, or complete obliviousness to ideas/facts/assumptions.

I usually write in the third person, as Svenn. This allows me the ability to present ideas in a somewhat detached manner, as the idea will then be associated with Svenn, the name, and not necessarily Svenn the person (though obviously Svenn is just an avitar- my name is Josh and I am not a Pally IRL...see, again with the qualifiers! :) Thus Svenn becomes a pseudonym or nom-de-guerre from which objectivity can be drawn while protecting the writer from personal criticism.

That being said, advancing ideas in any medium; written or otherwise is a tiring proposition. Content does not in fact grow on trees. I, Svenn, am wearing out. My interests are too varied to keep The Misadventures “on-topic” most of the time. I tank, I heal, I melt the occasional face….and I write. I love to write. Hopefully, my writing is taken in the same light as my gaming; academic and analytical at its core, impassioned in its conveyance, and cathartic in its execution.

To kick or not to kick?

2010-01-28T10:57:00.006-09:00

Rather than waste everybody’s time the past few days with filler content (read: I am about out of ideas), Svenn decided to pool his creative efforts into one post- the results of which are hopefully a more cogent discussion.

There has been a lot of buzz about DPS performance in PuGs formed with the LFD tool. Gelvon over at The Greedy Goblin advocates for prompt dismissal of poor performers, Rohan of Blessing of Kings leans towards the "tolerate and finish approach", and even Larisa of The Pink Pigtail Inn- the paragon of cheer and joy in the blogosphere, has weighed in on her personal use of the Vote Kick option (albeit in respects to tanks and healers not DPS). These posts are just a small representation of the material out there concerned with this topic.

Svenn too has encountered his fair share of “sub-optimal” players in both LFD and premade groups, and has always come out the run with the emblems he expected coming in. So what’s all the fuss about? Near as I can tell, separating fact from opinion, there are several conclusions that can be reached:

As heroics are repeated ad-nausea, minute per emblem (MpE) becomes increasingly important. When the instance was new and fresh people were more tolerant of longer runs, as long as they were successful. With the sparkle of newness long since faded, heroics are just another grind- best gotten done and over with as quickly as possible.

Gear < Skill is an unpopular argument. While that does not change the underlying truth of the statement, acceptance of the argument all too often will implicate yourself or your behaviors as part of the problem and as such is better left unexamined. (Gear is not a limiting factor if you already have skill, so why try and grind badges to get more? If you don’t have skill, gear will enable you to get farther, but still won’t address the underlying condition of lack of skill. Etc.)

Vote kicking is Mean >:(, that is to say it is viewed negatively by most. Right, wrong, or indifferent-people hesitate to “pull the trigger” unless the situation is incredibly dire. If you vote kick for low DPS output, you set a standard. By setting this standard, you now obligate yourself to the standard (more work for you) and; you have no guarantee that the next replacement will be any better than the person you just vote kicked.

The outcome of this then becomes one of personal values. If you are invested in ridding WoW, or at least your Heroic run of crappy DPS then- Vote Kick away. If you want to get your Heroic, get your badges, and get out then- Vote Kick only when necessary. If you want to argue that Gear is less of a factor than it is made out to be- come talk to Svenn or a wall, because no one else is likely to listen (and I already have the gear so I probably don’t count).

Grayce on Battlegrounds!

2010-01-25T08:12:00.003-09:00

Ahh, Battlegrounds. I have to admit, I was not always a fan of BGs. In fact, anything PVP related used to make me want to sit down and weep. But lately, I’ve been rather enjoying them. I’m not sure what changed or why (maybe it was Wintergrasp?), but I have found myself running around a battleground or two every day for the past week or so. I do the battleground daily. I’m using my honor points to buy PVP gear. How did I get here? Am I totally out of control? Probably. However, for as much as I am starting to enjoy BGs, there are still a few things about them that irk me. (Maybe “irk” isn’t the right word. I’m not sure. But for lack of a better word, it’s what we’re going with today.) And since Svenn is such a huge fan of lists, I thought I would list them out for you here, today.

Things I DON’T enjoy about battlegrounds:

1. Not having any idea what I’m doing there. I’ll admit it, I am a BG noob, and really have no business being in most of them. And I hate running around these places completely lost, and then finding myself dead because I stupidly ran into 7 horde players.

I will say this though, with the achievement system Blizzard has in place, I found I can look up what achievements are available for each BG and then have a somewhat better grasp of what’s going on around me and what the goal of each battleground is. Sure, I’m still clueless most of the time, but at least I have an idea of my end goal should be (yes, I know the end goal is to win the battleground, but now I have a better idea of how to obtain that goal).

2. I don’t like being so squishy. Obviously I could remedy this by bringing my paladin into the BG instead of my mage, but I’ve already started gearing Grayce and stuff, so she’s my PVP toon of choice.

I am hoping that as I get better PVP gear, and get a better grasp on what I’m doing in most of these places, that I will be less squishy, and I won’t die as often. Obviously there’s no hope for me when I run into 7 enemies at once, and I’m all by my lonesome (which is when I usually just sit there and watch as they kill me, there’s no point in fighting back). But soon I hope to dominate in these things and have my name known throughout the PVP worlds. Others will say of me, “Have you heard of that mage, Grayce? Dude, you do NOT want to mess with her. If you roll up on her in a BG, just give up, you don’t stand a chance.” Okay, maybe not, but a girl can dream.

3. Finally, and this is my biggest pet peeve about battlegrounds, is all the attitude and QQ-ing (as it’s called in game) that goes on when a BG doesn’t go the way someone wants it to.

First of all, bro, it’s a stinkin’ game, okay? Lighten up. If you are seriously getting that bent out of shape over this kind of thing, you might want to step away from the computer for a few days, go outside, and explore nature a little bit.

Secondly, telling the other people in your BG group that they suck isn’t really a cool thing to do. It does not make you seem as important and awesome as you might think it does. I does, however, is make you sound like a tool. It also doesn’t make me want to work harder to help you out. I was in a BG the other night and the attitude flying around that place was unreal. There were people cursing at each other, yelling back and forth, and just being all-around jerkfaces. There is really no need for that sort of behavior. It kind of ruins the fun for everyone else. And that is what this game is supposed to be by the way: fun.

So, there you have it. My list (and did you notice the little list within the list? I’m so good to my Svenn) of things about battlegrounds that irk me. Not that they’ll stop me from running a BG every now and then, but sometimes a girl’s just gotta put these sorts of things out there. Thanks for reading and I’m sure Svenn will have something much more interesting for you to read next.

~Grayce

DPS Tips Part. 3-Start Large

2010-01-22T07:33:00.004-09:00

Start large.

The final step in the process is performance. This is where recount makes its money as an analytical tool. Aside from measuring DPS, recount tracks all manner of useful statistics that can help you evaluate your performance. Key items to hone in on include: Activity (how much of each fight did you spend moving/doing nothing), DoT up-time, Buff up-time, DPS by fight, and deaths to name a few.

Lets take each of these categories in turn.

Activity. The more active you are in the fight the more damage you are going to be able to do. In a perfect world, DPS would get into position and never have to move until everything was dead. Since this is rarely the case, you must learn to move efficiently to maximize your DPS. In general movements should be restricted to the space of 1 global cool-down, or until you are out of the fire/poison/goo etc. Using instant cast abilities during movement will allow you to move further as the ability resets the global cool-down without interrupting movement or damage output- but at all costs moving excessively or for long periods of time without doing damage should seek to be avoided.

DoT up-time. While DoTs may be a waste on short fights that result in dead mobs before the DoT has time to expire, DoTs on boss fights should reach near 100% up-time. The key to maximizing damage is to refresh DoTs at the last possible second- thus keeping the DoTs rolling while not wasting GCDs/mana/time with unnecessary refreshes or worse gaps in time when no DoT is up.

Buff up-time. In the stat weight priority example above, proc based class/talent buff up-time should also be near 100%. If you are not seeing those kinds of results, maybe the stat priority is off, or maybe you just had an unlucky crit-less dry spell. Chances are, if you seem to be getting unlucky pretty frequently you may need to stack more crit/haste/ whatever stat your ability is dependent on. This will also display buff uptime from trinkets, both trinkets with “on hit” and “on use” so you can see how many procs you get from the “on hit” trinkets, as well as if you need to be more diligent in using your “on use” trinkets.

DPS by fight. While getting an overall picture of your DPS is important, getting breakdowns by fights will add depth to your knowledge of how you perform. Looking at DPS from a variety of fights (those with adds/AoE, lots of movement, and no movement) will help focus your efforts on your weak points leading to an overall increase in DPS.

Deaths. Figuring out what killed you will go a long way to avoiding the same fate next time. Dead DPSers don’t do much damage, so staying alive is in your best interest as well as everybody else’s.

While there are plenty of other factors to consider (fast vs. slow weapon, 2 hander vs. main-hand/ off-hand, etc.), an understanding of the basics will ensure you are on the right track towards maximum DPS. Benchmarking yourself against others of a comparable gear score will also help give you an idea of where you stand in your learning curve.

Never stop striving to be better. Once you have a handle on the “basics”, constant refinements and testing of different strategies will help push you to even better results. If this seems like a lot of work, it is…but not in comparison to the amount of effort put into leveling and gearing your toon to begin with.

DPS Tips Part. 2-Start Medium

2010-01-21T06:33:00.004-09:00

Start medium.

Once you have sorted out builds and glyphs, it’s time to move on to rotations, priorities, and stat weights. Once again class websites/EJ will prove an invaluable source of information as well as your thorough reading of your talents and abilities.

Rotations refer to set sequence of events, ie. I will start each fight by casting Life Tap-Curse of Elements- Corruption-Immolate- Conflagrate-Chaos Bolt-Incinerate x2- and so on. These are often developed to ensure maximum up-time (a concept we will revisit later on) on DoTs, Procs, and cool-downs.

Priorities refer not to set sequence of events but rather, to a ranking in which events will take place, ie. in the above example, if Conflagrate comes off cool-down before I get to my 2nd Incinerate, I will use it instead because I have assigned it a higher priority than incinerate- likewise Chaos Bolt may be ranked even higher still and thus take precedence over both and be cast 1st instead. While rotations may be more defined, and as such easier to execute- priorities will usually lead to higher DPS output if executed properly.

Stat weights refer to how important a particular stat is to your class. This is the part where many people get confused. Stat weights vary wildly between specs, even specs that otherwise seem similar (Disc vs. Holy Priest for example). By now, the understanding you have gained through your preparations should lead you to certain conclusions about what stats are valuable to you. Ranking those stats by order of precedence will help as you start to sort through the myriad of gear, gem, and enchant options available to you. Further defining those stats in terms of “caps” will lead to better decision making when gemming and further reduce your confusion.
There are some stats that absolutely will not apply to you and should therefore be avoided (eg. +Spell Power on a plate item for a Warrior or DK).

There are some stats that are derivatives of other stats and will change in value as you move things around (eg. Strength = Meele AP and Shield Block Value, Agility = AP, Crit, and Armor Value). While an in-depth understanding of the various coefficients is not necessary for success, a basic knowledge in what stat modifies what for each class is useful when developing your stat priorities.

There are caps on certain stats, beyond which having more is a waste. A prime example of this is +Hit. Once you have reached hit cap (well defined for each class in every possible scenario of talents, buffs, etc.) you will hit 100% of the time, thus more hit won’t make you hit any more often as you never miss to begin with. (Most toons will have 2 hit caps, one for spells and abilities, and one for “white damage”- normal auto attack swings/shots- you need only be concerned with the former unless you are a dual-wielding melee or highly reliant on white damage melee swings).

Caps are less defined for some other stats. Take crit for example. While there is no high end crit cap per-se (100% cirt is theoretically possible), at some point, stacking more crit comes at the expense of another stat that would result in more net gains. For stats like this, a more in-depth analysis is required. A stat such as crit may result in a temporary buff (enhancement shammy’s Unleashed Rage for example procs a 4% AP increase for 10secs whenever the shammy crits) which will help dictate a practical cap to it- one which will result in near 100% up time for the buff. Anything above that cap will not necessarily be a waste, but will once again enter that stat into a lower weight than it had prior to arriving at the “minimum cap”. The same concepts hold true for the other stats as well, and while it seems confusing, establishing what each stat does in relation to the others will go a long way to simplifying your decisions when dealing with them.

DPS Tips Part.1- Start Small

2010-01-20T07:06:00.005-09:00

So, you want to up your game? Where do you start? How can you tell if your game needs upping? Is upping even a word? Enough questions, let’s get started.

Tools:
Recount is not just a way to prove you’re better than everyone else (though it’s often used that way unfortunately). Recount contains huge amounts of useful detailed information, some of which we will talk about later on in the post.

Target Dummys, placed in all the major cities (I prefer IF- in the military quarter), are a great way to measure your DPS in a controlled environment.

Internet sites such as Elitist Jerks (EJ), class specific sites, and dare I say it even “The Misadventures of Svenn” have detailed analysis of rotations, stat priorities, abilities, and more.
Method:

Start small. This means, start with things you can affect immediately; talents and glyphs. A little research up front will go a long way towards maximizing DPS while minimizing how much gold you spend on respecs. The Min/Max crowd over at EJ has done all the work for you as far as what is mathematically the “optimal” raid spec for top damage. A close read of all talents available in each talent tree should provide you with enough information to make your own informed decisions about talenting should you find the EJ recommended specs undesirable from a play-style enjoyment standpoint.

Do the same thing for your glyphs. Again, check all available glyphs for your class, not just the ones currently for sale on the AH or that your inscriptionist currently knows. There are usually 1 or 2 commonly agreed to “must have” glyphs, and 1 or 2 additional glyphs that will work well with your spec. Get them all. Equip the “must haves” and then rotate between the other few until you settle on one that’s comfortable/ works well for you.

Looking For Multitudes?

2010-01-19T09:23:00.002-09:00

Apparently not. While scores of folks have netted themselves a few achievements and a non-combat pet out of the new LFG tool, Svenn is sitting just past the 10 PuGs required for the 1st achievement, and is nowhere near the required amount for the title “The Patient”. Well, “sure” you say, “he has about a billion alts”- the thing is Svenn has been farming the crap out of heroics to get badges to put together a decent Ret set.

On the few occasions Svenn has used the LFG tool the que has been instantaneous (5k gear score + tank = Win), but those occasions have been few and far between. Here are a few observations:

1. Playing Time: Svenn doesn’t have a huge amount of time to play…dang blog cutting into my free time. Since he isn’t camped out in front of the comp all day, he does less runs- thus less PuGs.
If you fall into this category- you may want to reacquaint yourself with the outdoors (unless you have a laptop and Wi-Fi, in which case, have at it!)

2. Playing Times: Different from “playing time”, Svenn’s play time fits nicely with others in his guild, thus making guild only runs much more accessible/ easy to put together than others who are online at odd times.
If you fall into this category- you may want to find a guild in your timezone, or recruit some friends so you have someone to group with.

3. Demand: As we saw in a previous post, tanks and healers are always in demand for 5mans, as Svenn can fit either of those categories (though he recently dropped healing for Ret) he is almost always assured a spot in any guild 5man that is forming.
If you fall into this category- you may want to dual-spec, or find some other way to make yourself indispensable (dropping funny one-liners throughout a run maybe?).

4.“The Patient”: The true title should come from guild only runs. These runs take time to put together in gchat, usually take longer to finish (Somebody wants to bring an new Alt, people are more inclined to go AFK with a guild group- knowing the group will wait, etc.). Svenn always asks in gchat if there is any interest in a run before turning to the LFG tool- even a partial guild run is preferable to a PuG, why help folks you don’t know get badges at the expense of guildies?
If you fall into this category the “Log and Look”- you may want to relook why you are in a guild at all.

Do not take this to mean that if you PuG you are a terrible person and should just /gquit your guild. These are just some personal observations Svenn had – take ‘em or leave ‘em. Plus, Svenn really likes lists:)

Tic-Toc, ToC!

2010-01-15T10:18:00.004-09:00

Time certainly has been slipping by since FIST last did any raiding. Last night a few intrepid adventurers (and Svenn of course) geared up and headed in to ToC to try and pick up where they left off several months ago. While the night started out a little rough, things picked up as everyone started to get into the swing of things and another FIST First was ultimately achieved, Lord Jaraxxus was vanquished!

Gratz to all involved in this long overdue kill, and welcome back to raiding! :)

Spotlight Avp

2010-01-13T07:04:00.006-09:00

Avp!

Drawn by this guy not Svenn.

Name: Rob aka Bobby aka Alientank

# of Alts: 10, no 80s other than Avp....yet

Favorite Toon: AVP

Hometown/ Where you are now: Originally born in Bad Windshine Germany, currently residing in Columbus Georgia

Food: Steak and potatoes

Pets: 2 dogs, Scrappy and Shadow

1 well known fact about you: I have played soccer since I was age 4

1 little known fact about you: Me and my name are clones

Your greatest WoW moment: 25k honor kills

Your greatest moment outside of WoW: I once had tea with the queen......honest I did

Anything else you would like to share (IRL or game related): I love to PvP, run dungeons, do J-ROTC, etc...

Inverse Relations

2010-01-12T09:23:00.008-09:00

DPS often gets maligned in WoW. The common perception is that there are too many of them, they are all "noobs", and there is never enough Tanks and Healers to go around. On one level this conception is true. As seen in figure 1 below, there are too many DPS. Compound that the DPS in this situation may be somebody's alt with sheer numbers, and you almost always insure at least one unskilled player in the group.

figure 1.

This labeling however, is unfair as we will see in figure 2. At the high end of raiding, healers and tanks are the first to get benched. Each encounter requires a set number of tanks, there is no room on the roster for an "extra" tank, and if you can get it done with less-great! Likewise with healers; while a 25 man raid may start its progression with 6 healers rostered, as the raid group becomes familiar with the content/ gear-up, extra healers become a liability. After all, excess healers and tanks are taking up valuable slots that could be filled with more Pew-Pew.

figure 2.

So, what is Svenn trying to say? No idea, really, I think he just likes making graphics... or maybe, next time he is in a group he will try and cut everyone some slack and remember he is a lot more replaceable than a good DPS :)

Weapons Workout

2010-01-11T13:49:00.008-09:00

Over the course of the last week, Svenn has been working out some theories on fast and slow weapons for tanking. While this is a much developed topic for dual-wield classes, little heed has been paid to it for one-hand weapon wielding tanks. The following results were formulated using Ghoulslicer (slow 2.6 speed, ilvl 219 “DPS weapon”) and Falric’s Wrist-Chopper (fast 1.6 speed, ilvl 232 “tanking weapon”) in 2 separate settings: IF Target dummies and ICC full trash rep runs (no bosses).

IF Target Dummy (Boss) self buff only, rotation 1*, duration 5mins:
Ghoulslicer- 800 DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 1.2k DPS

IF Target Dummies (Heroic x2) self buff only, rotation 2*, duration 3mins:
Ghoulslicer- 2.1k DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 1.6k DPS

ICC Rep Run (Trash only) raid buffed*, rotation 2, duration variable:
Ghoulslicer- 6.2k DPS
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper- 4.1k DPS

Aside from the duration of the test run on the AoE target dummies being shorter than desired (due to mana considerations while spamming high cost AoE abilities with no replenishment from BoS/Spiritual Attunement/class abilities), the weapon is isolated as the “only” variable…understanding Svenn may not have activated every ability perfectly after each global cooldown.

As we can see, slow outperforms fast by a huge margin when dealing with groups of 2 or more. This is based on the damage range of the weapons, NOT the DPS of each weapon. Slower weapons get swung less often and so hit harder to average out the DPS of faster weapons which get swung more often, but hit for less damage. Since abilities like Seal of Command and Hammer of the Righteous do damage based on maximum weapon damage in the “damage range” rather than the DPS of the weapon, slower weapons make for better returns when tanking groups of mobs.

Additional conditions to consider:
Hit Rating. Being at hit cap is essential to slow weapon wielding. A tank cannot afford to wait 3 seconds after a miss for another weapon swing, thus the popularity of fast weapons for tanking. While hit is not a stat worth going out of your way for as a Pally tank, the higher ilvl tanking gear usually has enough +Hit on it to get you where you need to be.

Defense Rating. It should go without saying that maintaining the 450 defense cap is a must. Slower weapons normally assigned to the DPS arena don’t come with +Defense stats, again contributing to the fast weapon popularity among tanks. As with the +Hit, heaps of defense on higher ilvl tanking gear make obtaining the cap without any defense on your weapon easily attainable at higher gear levels.

For optimal performance, one of each type (fast and slow) weapon should be carried, with the slow weapon equipped for AoE pulls, and the fast weapon equipped for single target fights. While customization of this level usually will result in a defense cap overage when the traditional fast “tanking weapon” is equipped (if it has +defense on it), the resultant DPS gains will more than make up for it, appeasing even the most ardent of the MIN/MAX crowd.

Above: Screenshot with slow main hand weapon. Below: Screenshot with fast main hand weapon.

Rotations: Seal of Command, Retribution Aura, and Sanctuary are up for all test incidences.
Rotation 1: Judgment of Wisdom, Hammer of the Righteous
Rotation 2: Consecration, Judgment of Wisdom, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Wrath, Avenger’s Shield, Shield of Righteousness

Raid Buffs: Blessing of Sanctuary, Blessing of Might, Ret/Devo Aura, 8% Kings from LW Drums, Mark of the Wild, +STA Inscription Raid Wide Fortitude Scroll, Trueshot Aura, and some Shammy Totems (no idea what they all were, but they were the same through both iterations of trash clearing. Any shammies out there that can ID them from the above screenshots?).

Warlock Tanking Part 2

2010-01-08T06:29:00.001-09:00

Tactics:
Aggro management will be one of your biggest issues when Lock tanking. As VW lacks any AoE attacks, you will have to rely largely on single target attacks and Crowd Control (CC) from your group. The use of tab targeting and VW’s AoE taunt can be used for groups lacking CC but you will need to be extra vigilant to ensure VW stays on top of the threat meter. Additionally, any means of threat transfer such as a Hunter’s Misdirection or Rouge’s Tricks of the Trade should be used as often as possible. Demonic Empowerment can also provide temporary threat boosts to VW.Should a mob still get away, or CC break early, it now becomes your job to pick up and tank that mob either until it is down, or VW has established aggro on it.

This can be done in a variety of methods:
1. Threat transfer, again utilizing one of the earlier techniques, one of your party members can direct the mob back to VW (provided their ability is not on cooldown
2. Use your VW’s Sacrifice ability to give yourself a damage absorption bubble and quickly establish threat on the target yourself. Once threat is established, you can then kite the mob until it is dead, or back to VW for your minion to reestablish aggro through direct attacks (soul shatter can be used to drop your aggro back down, though there is a longish cooldown associated with its use)
3. Activate Metamorphosis, taunt the target to you and tank it in normal fashion. While this may split your healer’s focus between 2 tanks, there shouldn’t be too much concern if it is just trash mobs. Activate VW’s Sacrifice ability in conjunction with Metamorphosis if you are short on heals for extra insurance.
4. If there is no space limitation/ worry about pulling the next group of mobs, you can always fear the loose mob (though this is probably a rare occasion and as such should not be counted on).

Positioning of mobs will be your second biggest challenge. Some mobs require tanking facing away from the rest of the group. Depending on the situation this can addressed as simply as having the group reposition themselves behind the mob or through more challenging techniques. In fights where space is limited or very specific positioning requirements exist (think: Ingvar in UK) a more creative approach must be taken. In these instances you can position the mob yourself before sending VW to tank. To do this, activate VW’s Sacrifice while placing VW on passive, body pull the mob into position and quickly have VW taunt it off you. Since VW will have been on follow he should now be facing the proper direction and tanking can continue as normal. Alternatively you can position the after activating Metamorphosis, however Cromm recommends saving Metamorphosis till later on in most boss fights, as the access to the extra taunt that comes with it is too valuable to use at the front end (in case VW loses aggro or goes down for some reason).

Other Tips:
Knowing when big damage spikes are coming, and using Improved Health Funnel during them, will go a long way to keeping VW at full health. (20% damage reduction while channeling).

There are a lot of tools at your disposal to refund health, Drain life, Death Coil, Healthstones, etc., use them!

Don’t underestimate Demonic Circle: Teleport. This can be used effectively when kiting, or to get yourself back out of harm after a body pull/ positioning VW pull. Cromm puts one up before almost every fight.

Cromm hopes you have enjoyed this little guide to 'lock tanking, and Svenn will be back to business as usual on Monday.

Warlock Tanking Part 1

2010-01-07T10:08:00.008-09:00

As you all know, Svenn is a man of many Alts. Svenn also has a, some would say, unhealthy fixation with tanking. With 2 supposedly "pure" DPS classes on his lvl 80 roster, he has decided to give some time over to documenting some of his "tanking for DPS" experiments. While hunter pet tanking has been covered at length by various other sites (Big Red Rhino is an excellent resource for all things tenacity related), little attention has been given to the field of Warlock tanking. Over the next 2 days, Svenn will be handing the reigns over to his Lock alt Cromm for some in depth analysis and a how to guide for lock tanking. This series was originally written for his guild forums, but is good enough (IMHO) to be worthy of the Svenn blog readers as well....if there are any of you left.

So you want to be a Lock tank? You have questions. How do I get started?What gear do I need? What spec? What glyphs? What minion? Am I crazy? Don’t worry, all these questions and more, answered below.

Part 1: Talent Selection, Gear and Glyphs

Talent Selection: Cromm recommends a 3/60/8 but there are some points to play around with here, so he will focus on the must have talents from the build rather than try and put too fine a point on it.

3 points in Affliction for Suppression- you will see later on in the gear selection section that +hit gear will not be a priority so you will need to pick up hit wherever else you can get it.

~60 points in Demonology- obviously your minion is going to be doing most of the actual tanking, so a lot of the points spent here will be focused on improving him.

Effective Health:
Demonic Embrace
Fel Vitality
Demonic Empowerment

Damage Mitigation:
Demonic Aegis
Master Demonologist
Demonic Resilience
Metamorphosis/ Nemesis
Molten Skin (from the Destruction tree)

Healing:
Improved Healthstone
Fel Synergy
Improved Health Funnel (has a damage mitigation aspect to it as well)
Soul Link
Fel Domination/Master Summoner (think of it as unlimited battle rez’s)

Aggro Generation:
Demonic Brutality
Unholy Power
Demonic Empowerment
Demonic Knowledge
Demonic Tactics/ Improved DT
Demonic Pact

8 points in Destruction- these points are just to get you down to 3/3 Molten Skin.

Minion Selection: Void Walker is the only viable option for tanking instances. Your VW should have around 30k health (Cromm will get to how you can achieve that kind of health pool further down in the guide). Due to his AoE taunt, single target taunt, and increased threat generation from attacks as well as his extra 10% damage mitigation from the Master Demonologist talent, he will outperform the Felguard when tanking. (Though with good heals, you can switch back and forth using the Felguard for trash pulls and VW for the bosses.)

Gear Selection:
Your minion’s attributes scale with yours; as you will be tanking, you will want a fair amount of stamina. In fact, stamina is your number one priority. A few pieces of “of stamina” gear will go a long way to increasing your VW’s effective health pool. Your need for stamina however, will be offset to an extent by a need for resilience. Ideally, tanks should be crit immune, unfortunately the Demonic Resilience talent will only get you half way there (3%). To make up the difference you will need a fair amount of resilience (useful to both you and your summoned demon). The good news in this is that PvP gear, which has all the resilience, focuses largely on stamina as its primary “white” stat, so you can build towards crit immunity even as you build up your demon’s health. Finally, when considering gear, make sure you do not neglect +hit. While it is unlikely that you will be hit capped when lock tanking, you should shoot for at least 8%.

Glyph Selection:
Glyph of Voidwalker (20% extra health for VW)
Glyph of Metamorphosis (we will see further down why this extra 6 seconds is worth it)
There is some freedom of choice for your last glyph, but Cromm would recommend Glyph of Siphon Life, Healthstone, or Health Funnel

In Part 2, Cromm will cover tactics for pulling, positioning, and maintaining aggro, along with other helpful tips to get started.

Apologies

2010-01-06T10:03:00.001-09:00

Svenn has had the Avp Spotlight on hold for so long due to school finishing up and the Holidays, that he seems to have misplaced the interview :(

No doubt it is somewhere in the barely contained chaos that is the top surface of his desk, but until he can sort through all that craziness and find it again it will have to remain on hold a little longer.

Tanking for Trees

2010-01-05T08:18:00.001-09:00

Yesterday Svenn wrote about his “L337” tanking DPS in ICC, which prompted some questions. Tanks are supposed to be built to survive, go the distance, in it for the long haul, etc. right? Who cares about their DPS as long as they maintain threat and nobody dies?

Well, putting aside the continuing need to compensate for lower DPS toons in order to beat enrage timers (Raid Centric), there are several good reasons to build a Tank/DPS hybrid spec.

Svenn finds himself tanking for Druid Healers much of the time. Now trees are some of his favorite people (/wave at Star and Raen), but unlike other healing classes, their ability to DPS from their shifted form is minimal. In raids healers have their hands full chasing bars back up to full, but anyone who has ever healed a heroic for a tank in full epics knows how boring it can be. In the ongoing quest for badge efficiency, healers have taken to “pitching in” as DPS to help speed things along. As speed tanking becomes the norm, the trees have been relegated to the woods, so to speak. That’s not to say they get any fewer invites to heal- everyone needs healers and trees are great for the job. Rather, they don’t get as many highlights in the speed runs because their options for “pitching-in” are limited (in the DPS arena).

As such, Svenn has forgone several of the more “traditional” tanking talents in favor of higher DPS choices. The same goes for stat priorities; while stamina remains the stat of choice and the 540 defense rule remains inviolate, other tanking stats such as Dodge and Parry take a back seat to stats more traditionally assigned to the DPS arena. Shield Block (both value and rating) remains a good choice for its utility as both a defensive stat (mitigation) and an offensive stat (damage done by Shield of Righteousness is based on block value while Holy Shield deals damage on each successful block). While these choices lead to more incoming damage for Svenn, they are great way to leverage a dedicated healer’s mana into increased DPS output for the group.

In this way, Svenn maintains the traditional tank cooldowns for damage spikes while hitting like one of the DPS.

ICC Iced

2010-01-04T11:33:00.001-09:00

Svenn had his first look into Icecrown Citadel this weekend. After completing a quick trash clear as DPS on Saturday, he was asked to Off-Tank another rep run on Sunday. While no bosses were downed, he had some surprising insights into Pally tanking in ICC.

The 20% dodge reduction aura makes Pally tanks an attractive option for ICC. While mitigation remains less desirable that huge amounts of total health, the hit to dodge makes Pallys’ high block chance shine all the more.

The presence of all those undead also makes Pally tanks an attractive option. No one does undead like Pallys, and ICC is chock full of them. With a fairly diverse raid composition, Svenn was able to pull over 4.5k DPS as a tank. Being able to throw decent DPS as a tank is important as many of the mobs (at least the ones that come from the traps) are taunt immune.

Svenn used a modified tanking build that takes Seal of Command and most of the improved crit talents out of the Ret Tree. Additionally, Svenn glyphed for improved Holy Wrath (lowering the cooldown by 15secs), as well as Hammer of the Righteous (hit one additional target). Aside from the increase in DPS provided by the Holy Wrath Glyph, the ability to AoE stun all undead every 15secs is huge-making Holy Wrath a must have Glyph for ICC (a must for Ret as well and even Holy Pallys should consider getting it for ICC).

All in all it was a good time, and Svenn was able to get about halfway to friendly with the Ashen Verdict.

SIDE NOTE: Svenn was able to solo the first pull in ICC. How it works: Range pull the 1st bone skeleton guy [note to self:look up name of bone dude] using a taunt or dynamite, judge wisdom (you will be burning through mana) when he comes in range (let the friendly NPCs pick up the other mob). Throw your shield to slow his movement while you begin kiting him around the front “lobby” area. Keep judging wisdom and throwing exorcisms while kiting. Rotate between Avenger’s Shield, Holy Wrath and Hammer of Justice to keep the mob at range while the friendly NPCs at the entrance help DPS it down. You can use fear too, but you need to be careful with that and be ready to stun/break fear, if it looks as if the mob may pull others. As long as you maintain aggro, and do a modicum of DPS on the mob you will get the rep when it finally dies.While not a very time effective way to earn rep, it is doable if you have the inclination to try.

EDIT: It seems Blizzard may have hot fixed some of the ICC mobs. Svenn went in last night with Smanthakitty to clear the first trash pull, and the friendly NPCs at the front did not pick up the second skeleton. While he still managed to down the first one and net the 19 rep, he also could not DI any of the NPCs and ended up eating the repair bill when the 2nd skeleton guy killed him :(

Winterviel Wasslings

2009-12-28T07:42:00.003-09:00

Svenn almost forgot to get up his latest Holiday Tune....better late than never. Thank you for all the helpful suggestions which led to this latest Holiday song. In the end I decided to go with Grandma got ran over, because it fit better with my idea to spoof pallys at the same time (If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?) Hope you enjoy it :)

As sung to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”

My gnome ‘Lock got run over by a Pally
walkin’ home from BGs Christmas eve.
He had been to kill the Greench
and now was lookin’ for Metzen I believe.

Oh I’d been drinkin’ too much egg nog,
though they jacked the price up on small egg.
But I didn’t feel like grindin’
so I joined back-slash 2 to start to beg.

When the guards found me Christmas mornin’
at the gates to ole Iron Forge,
Cursader Aura still hung in the air,
and incriminatin’ charger prints marked the gorge.

My gnome ‘lock got run over by a Pally
walkin’ home to IF Christmas eve.
You can say that they aint OP,
but as for me and my imp, we believe.

Now we’re all so proud Gakbis.
He’s been takin’ it so well.
See him at the IF target dummies,
launchin’ fire balls like a demon spawn from hell.

It’s not Winter Veil without me.
[A little helper from my friends] remains undone.
And I can’t help but wonder:
Is this year’s clockwork robot any fun?

My gnome ‘lock got run over by a Pally
walkin’ home from BGs Christmas eve.
You can say that they aint OP,
but as for me and my imp, we believe.

Now the roast is on the table.
And the dwarves are drinkin’ ale.
Revelers kissin’ under mistletoe,
to celebrate this Feast of Winter Veil.

I’ve warned all my friends in guild chat.
“Better watch out for yourselves.”
They should never give a license,
to a man who roles Horde and plays Blood Elves!

My gnome ‘lock got run over by a Pally
walkin’ home to IF Christmas eve.
You can say that they aint OP,
but as for me and my imp, we believe.
(Sing it Gakbis!)
-Svenn

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-21T08:55:00.004-09:00

Svenn is taking off for the next two weeks. This rare shot of the elusive Ninja Kitty should tide you over until he returns.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Crowd Control Comeback?

2009-12-14T13:25:00.003-09:00

Svenn finally had a chance to tank through the new 5mans over the weekend. On the whole, he found them much more entertaining than previous releases such as ToC. Blizzard seems to have gotten the scaling just about right too. While the boss fight mechanics are not all that novel, they provide enough of a challenge that even OP raiders need to pay attention during their execution... unless of course you want to try and kill off an unpleasant DPSer during Mirrored Soul or some such :)

What really caught Svenn's eye during the initial run through, was the trash pulls' positioning and composition. Many of the trash pulls include larger numbers of mobs, which in and of itself is nothing new. However, the numbers of casters and spacing between them make for more challenging pulls. Svenn could not just run in and throw down consecrate and hit all the mobs at once. In the Forge of Souls for example: with his improved shield toss silencing 2 casters and pulling them to a 3rd, Svenn still usually left 1 caster free to do as it pleased. While this was not necessarily a problem for him (taunts and the occasional stun did the trick), it could in fact be a hindrance to groups lacking in the healing arena, without a good AoE type tank, or light on DPS.

All this leads to the titular question, could Blizzard be seeking a return to the days of crowd control?

Growing up Tank

2009-12-11T06:38:00.003-09:00

It's Friday and Svenn is tired. Rather than dig deeper into patch 3.3 today, he has decided to share the below quote from a post by Rohan over at Blessing of Kings, talking about the updated LFG tool. A pretty good observation... if it holds true. As always, you can check out the whole article by clicking the link above.

"You know, in a few months there are going to be some sick skilled tanks available. Imagine levelling to max purely by running dungeons with PuGs. Those tanks who come out of that are going to be really good."

Lets hope so!

Icecrown, more like Icecrash

2009-12-09T06:50:00.003-09:00

As the title alludes to, Svenn had no luck trying to get into the new instance last night- and as such, there will be no review:( He did however knock out the daily random heroic and the weekly raid quest, netting himself 7 Frost Emblems with about 45 minutes of work. I'd imagine the weekly raid quests will not always be as easy as killing Flame Leviathan.

Anyways, first impressions of the patch:

Negatives:
The auto-DE function, which seemed like such a good idea, may in fact turn out to be just another opportunity for drama.

Changing the daily heroic system to a random dungeon is annoying. Svenn isn't in it for the badges so under the old system he could pick and choose which days he would do the daily based on whether or not he enjoyed the instance. Additionally, with 5 lvl 80's, Svenn could pick an Alt to go if there was a particular piece of loot that might drop (yes Svenn still needs a few epics from 5mans- it is hard to gear up 5 toons!) There may be a way to switch out toons once the random dungeon has been assigned, so it may not be that bad- though you would still be committing to a run you didn't necessarily want to go on.

Patch day lag.

Positives:
The revamp to the map and linkage of the quest log to it seems nice. Svenn did experience some trouble while questing on the druid (lvl 72 now:)) with the mini-map displaying the wrong sub-zone names, but nothing too major.

The new LFG tool updates are nice, however, Svenn doesn't really PUG so they are not all that useful to him personally.

Vampiric Touch now a 30 minute buff to shadow priests, rather than a 1.5sec Global Cooldown to be eaten every time there was a new mob (good news for Ottar!).

Increased opportunity for casual players. From heroics to raids, opportunities abound now for those not in Raid/ Full game guilds.

Sparkly new gear!

Svenn didn't get a chance to fully explore all the changes that came with 3.3, so expect a more coherent rundown sometime in the future.

iTank

2009-12-08T10:46:00.001-09:00

Svenn is running out of excuses to miss days posting. With the addition of some new technology to his arsenal (he got an iPhone) he can now blog from anywhere! Unfortunatley it doesnt come pre-loaded with good ideas of what to write about. Anyways this post is a test of this new system...Initial impressions:

Svenn has fat fingers for being such a skinny guy.

Touch pad typing does not help Svenn's word per minute count.

Bloging during a briefing is NOT reccomended!

In other news: Today is Patch Day - see you in Icecrown!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Argent Aspirations

2009-12-07T10:58:00.004-09:00

No, Svenn has not reversed his stance on dailies and started up the tournament nonsense in Northrend. Rather, today's guest spot comes from fellow guildie Shakha. Inspired by his rep grind with the Argent Crusade/ Dawn, and possibly Shaara's fantastic works of fan fiction, he wrote up a little something; a teaser to some future tales perhaps?
Shakha bowed at the waist, hands outstretched and upraised in the traditional manner of his people. “You sent for me, Lord Eadric?”

The Grand Champion of the Argent Crusade nodded. “I did indeed Shakha. Your progress in the tournament here has not gone unnoticed. You've Championed the cause of the Alliance well, and won high favor with every Kingdom. You are even spoken of in the inner circles of the Argent Crusade. High Lord Fordring himself has said that we have few Champions of your mettle.”

“I am unworthy of such praise, milord,” Shakha replied, “though I am grateful for it.”

“It is because of this that I summoned you,” Eadric continued. “There is yet one thing to be done before you claim your place among the Argent Champions.”

Shakha rose and looked up at Eadric the Pure. “Name it my liege, I am ready to do whatever I can to bring light to the dark corners of this world.”

Eadric raised his sword in gesture, as was his habit when giving orders. “We need you to return to the Eastern Kingdoms, to what is now called the Plaguelands. Arthas has not forgotten his victories there, and has not given up hope of prevailing. Even though Naxxramas has come to Northrend, so too has most of our strength been sent here. A new threat has arisen in the dark places of Stratholme and Scholomance. You must go there and purge them of evil. Show the denizens of those dark corners that they dare not come out from hiding. You have grown in power since your last foray into those places, and I am confident in sending you alone.”

Shakha bowed once more. “I will do my best not to disappoint you milord.”

Eadric nodded “I'm counting on that. Report at once to Light's Hope Chapel, where you'll be given instructions on what must be done.” Eadric turned to the table beside him and lifted a magnificent two-handed sword, presenting it to Shakha. “Take with you this Claymore, it was born with honor by the great prophet Velen. May you bring it equal glory. Light be with you, mighty warrior.”

Adding on Add Ons

2009-12-03T06:19:00.002-09:00

It has been awhile since Svenn has talked about tanking. The last topic he dug into was that of running Healbot as a tank. This prompted some good discussions in the guild as well as quite a few Google queries. So, to expand upon that topic, Svenn will share some other must have and some nice to have Add-ons for tanking.

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM): This add-on is indispensable for all raiders, and tanks are no exception. It tracks the cool-downs on boss abilities, shouts raid warnings as things happen, and in general makes life so much more manageable when raiding. MUST HAVE

Omen: This add-on tracks aggro levels, which is good for DPS so they don’t pull the boss by accident, but it is also useful for tanks. As a tank your name should always be on the top of the aggro list, but there are other factors to be concerned with as well. Omen also tracks Threat per Second (TpS) which will give you a better understanding on how fast you build aggro, and as such how long you need to wait before telling the DPS they can open up (not long if you’re a Pally :). Additionally, it will let you know which DPS or healers you need to keep an eye on. The person throwing the most damage is not necessarily the one you need to worry about. There are various threat reduction talents, as well as enchants (Wisdom for example) and Meta-Gems that can further reduce threat. A DPSer with none of these is likely to be a bigger threat for pulling aggro than the 10k DPSer with all of them. MUST HAVE

Recount: This add-on tracks more than just DPS. It is invaluable for analyzing raid performance as a whole, but has some specific applications for tanks as well. For example; should you die, you can pull up the number of deaths options- click on your name and get a log recounting the final few seconds of your life to include damage in and healing received. This enables you to better determine what went wrong and devise strategies for overcoming it in the future. There are so many other options built into recount, Svenn recommends you download it and scroll through all the selection screens, making sure to click on your name, as this will in most cases bring up a window with more detailed breakdowns. MUST HAVE/NICE TO HAVE

Tank Totals: This add-on consolidates your tanking stats into a useful easy to read format. Svenn originally downloaded it in order to calculate total avoidance, but it does much more than that. It calculates effective health (based on actual health pool + damage mitigation from armor, etc. Svenn was surprised to learn that 40k health translate into him being able to eat a 60k hit unblocked or 70+k hit blocked). It can also be configured to shout raid warnings when an ability like Argent Defender is procced, or a special “tank” ability like Shield Wall or Last Stand is activated (HoS, Lay on Hands, Divine Sacrifice, etc. for us Pally types). NICE TO HAVE

Auctioneer: This add-on tracks prices at the AH along with a whole host of other options. While it has nothing to do directly with tanking, it does help when buying consumables for the next raid :) NICE TO HAVE

It is important to note: there are some risks associated with running add-ons. Never download add-ons from an unknown source. Svenn gets all his add-ons through Curse.com. He has never had a problem to date, and they have their own client which can also be downloaded to help manage your add-ons and inform you when there has been an update released for one of your current add-ons. Have some add-ons that you run that didn’t make the list? –Leave a comment.

Spotlight Skyjen

2009-12-02T06:31:00.008-09:00

Jen!!!

Name: Skyjen

Number of Alts: 6

Favorite Toon: Skyjen

Hometown/ Where are you now: East Riding of Yorkshire England

Favoritie Food: Anything spicy

Pets: None now had horses and rabbits and dogs and farm animals - parents have a farm!!

1 Well known Fact about you: I'm small!! I love Star Trek

1 Little Known fact about you: I used to race horses

Your greatest WoW moment: Too many but mostly they involve a bad day at work and cheered up by all the great guildies on here when I get home!
Your greatest moment outside of WoW: Birth of my son and finding out about the impending arrival of our second son.

Anything else you would like to share (IRL or Game related):
Game wise I dont say much on the website because Jon usually incorporates what I think in his posts and invariably we think along the same lines so no point putting the same thing up twice!!
If given the choice when running an instance I would choose to heal and if there arent many people answering the call for a run I will badger u into agreeing via whisper!!
I was unsure about joining WoW as Jon and I played Joint Operations a shooting game before so wasnt sure I'd like WoW on top of which I was unsure about the monthly outgoing. Now its me who's hooked!!

In RL: Work gets very stressful for me so my family is very important to me as they help me to unwind. WoW helps too BB and Macho are a tonic for sure!

I would do anything for my family and my friends, if I can help I will and if I cant i feel terrible when I have to say no!
I'm the most relaxed when we visit the Lake District and climb the mountains.

Top 5: Heroics

2009-12-01T15:13:00.000-09:00

Rather than finishing his class work or writing any real content for the blog, as Svenn is incredibly lazy, its time for yet another Top 5 list; Heroics.

1. Utgarde Keep (UK): Maybe its nostalgia, UK was the first Heroic Svenn ever tanked, maybe its the ease and relative quickness of the place, but Svenn has always had a soft spot for UK. The design and artwork of the place isn't incredible, though the forge area at the beginning is worth pausing for a look at with its flame walls, anvils, and whatnot. It is a great proving grounds for new specs, crazy ideas like lock tanking, and of course casting path of frost when running out at the end and listening to the surprise in the voices of your group mates as they die on contact.... not that Haager would ever do such a thing.

2. The Culling of Stratholme (CoT4): Svenn has always found the Caverns of Time instances among the best in the game. From both a lore standpoint and an immersion standpoint CoT is probably tops, the mission within a mission design of CoT4 is enjoyable too.

3. Trial of the Champion (ToC): This instance is tailor made for Pally Tanks, hence Svenn’s love for it; the lack of trash is good too. The fact that it rains epics doesn't hurt either.

4. Halls of Lightning (HoL): Some of the encounters are a bit annoying, but the inside is spectacular. Svenn highly suggests you take a minute and pan the camera around to take in the full scope of the cavernous layout.

5. OK, so maybe it’s a top 4 list. Places that don’t make the list are The Occulus and anything with spiders. UP, VH, and Nexus are all Meh. Halls of Stone would have made the list based on the whole Brann storyline, except that place is kinda annoying and Svenn doesn’t enjoy it all that much (the inside artwork is pretty amazing there too).

Want to make a case for your favorite instances, leave a comment.

Elementals

2009-11-30T13:19:00.006-09:00

"It is said" wheezed the old man "that in my grandmother's grandmother's day, stories of the Elementals were not merely legend, they were true tales, history, passed down from one generation to the next and kept against the day that they would be needed again. It was told then that there was a time when the world was young and the kingdom of the Elementals had some commerce with the kingdom of Men. Though it was not very common that the two races would intermingle, there was great respect between the two and peace existed between them. While Men farmed and plotted and loved and warred with one another, the Elemental races remained removed from their entanglements and tended to their own affairs, whatever those might have been. They divided themselves into four concerns; Earth, Air, Water and Fire, each a separate and unique dynasty with its own internal affairs. Though Men took them as a whole, the Elementals saw themselves as distinct and in the end that was perhaps their undoing.

It is told that one day a prince of the Dynasty of Air was wandering the borders of his concern and happened upon a maiden of the Dynasty of Water. The prince was struck with the maiden's beauty as she danced, for dancing she was, unaware that any eyes were watching her watery sport. It was only his sigh, the briefest stirring of her watery skirts, that gave his presence away. She spun to meet him, drawing her full strength to her and, listener, she was very powerful. She was no simple maiden, this slender, dancing sprite. She was a princess herself, and the first daughter of the most powerful ruler of the Dynasty of Water. But as the prince revealed himself to her she found her anger slipping away for he was fair to behold and it became clear to her that his observation had had no malicious intent. He stepped out upon the water to meet her and took her in his arms. From that moment forward they could not be parted.

The four Dynastys of the Elementals were enraged. That the boundaries of politics, law and society should be thus crossed was an outrage. Courts in all four Dynastys were scandalized; this was the height of indecency. The Dynasty of Water sought to contain its wayward princess in the deeps, far away from the questing Air. The Dynasty of Air cried that their prince had been bewitched and sought to imprison him in a desert whirlwind, far from any hint of Water. But the two young lovers could not be kept apart for not only were they young and beautiful but they were strong and resourceful. And so they ran and they hid among the Kingdom of Men, far from the war that they had unwittingly begun amongst the four Dynastys.

It is told that one night, a year to the day after they first beheld one another, a child was born of their union. But this child was no ordinary child and she came forth in pain, the only one of her kind, a hybrid of air and water, and her birth wreaked destruction and woe upon the Kingdom of Men. With her first cries, winds came howling down the hills, pinning saplings to the ground and driving crops and livestock both before it like so much debris. Men who had been coming home late from their fields never saw home again. Splinters were driven through walls; roofs were ripped off houses. But there was more to come. With the new child's first tears, torrents of rain poured down from the shattered heavens. Levees overflowed, rivers and lakes outstripped their bounds and entire towns were drowned in the floods that rose that night. Men sought shelter where they could; in caves high in the mountains, huddling behind tall rocks, cringing from each lighting flash like animals. The storm lasted for two days and when it finally cleared away, few of the Kingdom of Men were left to see it go.

Men cried bitterly for their dead and vowed vengeance upon the Kingdom of the Elementals. Centuries of peace disintegrated like dust. The Elementals came to the Kingdom of Men, bearing the bodies of their dead children, the prince and princess whose love had riven two kingdoms asunder. They also had died in the calamitous birth of their daughter. But it was not enough to appease the Kingdom of Men. And so the two Kingdoms were declared to be at war. Of the storm-cursed child there was no sign.

It is told that the Kingdom of the Elementals, sick at heart and torn with internal strife, faded from Men's eye. Though Men sought revenge, Elementals could not be found upon which to exact it. And so they passed into myth, legend and lore. But in my grandmother's grandmother's time it was rumored that the child who birthed that storm was not lost in it but survived and lives to this day."

The old man coughed and this time could not stop until his eyes were watery and his chest heaving.

-Shaara

Pilgrim's Bounty P-funk

2009-11-25T07:37:00.003-09:00

As sung to the tune of "Jump Around" by House of Pain

Pack it up, pack it in
On the tram to Stormwin’
Pilgirm’s bounty cooking
You know it’s pure win

Pumpkins, buy a stack up
Punk you better back up
Get your mammoth off the vendor or the whole crew will act up
Get up, stand up, get your cookin' skill up
If you’ve got the feeling, then get to turkey stealin’
Cooking it’s a free quest, rouge is in a feather dress
Yo, I’ll bust em in the eye
And then I’ll take the tram home
Feel it, steal it
Turkeys in the time limit
And I got more cheap Achievements than you got at the barber shop
Sure ‘nuff I got props from guild chat
Plus my mom and my pops

I came to sit down (2x)
So get out your seats and jump around
Jump around (3x)
Please pass the sweet potatoes down.
Jump (1,000x)

I’ll serve you up some spice bread stuffin’ lol.
If a mage steps up I’m takin’ the portal
Word to you Nelfs, when your rouge breaks stealth
I got more turkey shooters than this realm’s got ninja looters
And just like Anub’ Arak I’ve returned
Anyone stealing my turkey you’ll get burned
Cause I got instant casts and you ain’t got none
So if you come to battle bring a shotgun
But if you do you’re a fool, you ain’t got auto shot
Try and step to me, and I’ll take all you got
I got the skill, fest table get your fill
Cause when I shoot ta, another turkey kill

I came to sit down (2x)
So get out your seats and jump around
Jump around (3x)
Please pass the turkey down.
Jump (1,000x)

I’m the cream of the crop, I rise to the top
There ain’t a rouge/race combo I ain’t got
I’m a rouge exterminator
Or better yet a [Turkey Terminator]
Try’n play me out, nah you best stick to sega
Cause I ain’t loggin out like no punk witch
Get used to one style and Blizz might switch
It up up and around, then nerf nerf you down
Pilgrim hat on your head and you wake up on the Day of the Dead
I’m coming to get ya, coming to get ya
Spitting out feathers, rouge I’ll wet ya

I came to sit down (2x)
So get out your seats and jump around
Jump around (3x)
When the Hordie gets up beat him down.
Jump (1,000x)

FIST Firsts: Onyxia

2009-11-24T07:48:00.002-09:00

Alternately Titled: Thats No Way To Get A-head!

Onyxia proved to be far less of a challenge than finally getting a raid group together to kill her. With several key members of the team taking a break, it took some planning/ arm twisting to fill out the group. Once established, and some DC issues resolved, FIST made short work of the Broodmother and Whelps.

Svenn was fortunate enough to win Ony’s head, a gristly memento to be sure, but one which he was able to parley into the Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman. Gratz to all involved in yet another FIST first, and special thanks to Femtobot/Starwing for pulling the whole thing together.

Backslash O

2009-11-23T07:03:00.003-09:00

Since Svenn has been away from blogging, quite a back log of topics have built up. Diving right in seems like the best way to start chipping away at the pile, so here goes....

As the title indicates, Svenn has been promoted to Officer rank in FIST! While it was not something he was actively campaigning for, it was awesome to get the "call" nonetheless. Congratulations are in order for Corday and Faeris who also were promoted in the expansion of the 'O' ranks!

Svenn's initial wonderment:
There is an officer chat channel in game, who knew?
There is an officer section of the guild site? So that's where all the applications go after they are submitted.
There are side effects to being promoted? Svenn is once again a noob, the new guy in the ranks of O'ship (at least he has good company in Corday/ Faeris).
The promotion is unilateral across all Svenn toons? From Crommtastic all the way down to the baby druid Knutsen (lvl 56 as of last night, and ageing quickly)- all the tags say officer!

In other news; Grayce is completely unfazed by Svenn's new found position and /pay Svenn tribute does not in fact work on her... or anybody else for that matter.

Anyways, Svenn is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and will undoubtedly use this position for blog fodder in the future.

A Return to Writing

2009-11-20T08:54:00.001-09:00

You may not have noticed, but Svenn has been absent from the blogosphere the past few weeks. From 70 hour work weeks to Midterms, Snowstorms to Guild commitments; Svenn has plenty of reasons, but offers no excuses- he is a slacker. While things will undoubtedly continue to be hectic, semi-regular posting is resuming.

Shaara is being brought onto the team as regular contributor, so plenty to look forward to from one Azeroth’s most gifted authors. Note: If anyone else is interested in guest posting- Svenn is always looking for new material, just know that you will be paid in Winterfall Clams, and there is no dental plan.

So, yeah- more to come….just not today.

Part 2

2009-11-03T14:04:00.005-09:00

Svenn was going to wait until later in the week to put this up but, Grayce threatened him with sleeping on the couch until he did so....

I quickly consecrated the ground, thanking the Light for its blessing upon me. The Death Knight howled as the blessed ground singed his hooves. I placed a Seal of Judgement upon him; did anyone deserve to be judged more than this unrighteous soul? I watched in satisfaction as the blow struck. My gratification lasted only a moment however, as the Tauren raised an undead minion from the ground beside him to aid him in his fight against me. Beset on two fronts, I cast my Hammer of Justice upon the Tauren so that I could turn my full attention to his weaker partner for a moment. I raised my arms and called upon one of the holiest of all my spells: Exorcism. I would send this creature back to the hell from whence it came.

I had no sooner finished casting my spell when I found my body suddenly wracked with weakness. My blood boiled, I felt feverish and as I began to shiver I realized that I had not one but three types of plague. My health began to drain away quickly. I watched helplessly as the Tauren swung his sword. Feebly I attempted to place my shield between us but he was the faster and stronger of us now; a crippling blow landed on my sword arm. I staggered, clutching my wounded biceps. The zombie minion, half alive but still fighting, landed another blow.

Vaguely, I heard Dinky Dolittle’s cries from the sidelines. As the air swam in front of me, I whispered a prayer for cleansing. I seemed to hear birdsong and for a brief moment I could smell new grass and lily-of-the-valley. I felt a rush of spring throughout my body and suddenly all trace of fever and plague were gone. With a stronger voice I pleaded to the Light for healing. A beam of sunlight broke through the leaden sky and shone upon me; my body was healed and whole. I could hear Dinky laughing now.

With a shout of renewed vigor, I leaped upon my attackers. The Tauren put up his bone shield, rightly afraid of my endurance in the face of his attacks. I heard the foul sound of a horn; he was pulling out all the stops in his efforts to defeat me. I laughed grimly; he would not succeed. I sent a bolt of Holy Wrath toward his zombie, finishing him off. Then I turned my full attention to the Tauren. Calling upon the ancient blessing available to my kind, the Blessing of Kings, I began to hack my way through his shield. One by one the bones fell until he stood before me, exhausted and helpless.

He snarled something at me but I did not take the time to try to understand his curses. I have never been one to toy with an enemy, even one so foul as a death knight. Raising my sword high, wings glowing behind me, I plunged it into his heart. He gasped, eyes bulging, grasping the sword with both hands. He fell to his knees, then to the ground. Dinky cheered wildly from the sidelines. I stood beside the body, chest heaving with exertion.

I was turning to Dinky when I saw a strange movement out of the corner of my eye. A noxious green smoke was rising from the ground underneath the Tauren. I watched in horror as his body moved once, twice, three times. He rose up, reanimated as a zombie. In a voice that sounded of the grave, he laughed. I raised my sword once more. It appeared our battle was not finished. Once again, I called upon my holy power of exorcism. I saw the blow hit him and watched as it took most of his life away. He raised his sword to strike at me but I managed to deflect the blow onto my pauldrons. I sent out Holy Wrath and he crumpled to the ground, finished once and for all.

Dinky stood beside me, staring at the body of our fallen enemy. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think that fight was ever going to end! You sure showed him though, huh?” I turned to see my tiny gnome friend dancing with glee. “He’ll think twice before he picks on Dinky Dolittle again!”

“That he shall.” I said gravely.

Dinky opened the treasure chest. “Alright!” he squeaked. “Arena wristguards! I’ve been after those for months! Let’s go celebrate.” Together we mounted and rode off, abandoning the death knight’s body behind us on the arena floor. Grog and ale awaited us at the Salty Sailor and this time, I had no more important business to attend.

Monday Musings Part 1.

2009-11-02T13:40:00.003-09:00

While Svenn has been slacking off, Dinging 80 with his 5th toon (Helmuth the Hunter) and helping out the early raid group in Naxx (Healing that place is way different than tanking that's for sure! Thanks for breaking my priest in easy; Loatheb...O.o), the lovely and talented Shaara has benn busy at the keyboard picking up the slack.

Below is Part One of yet another Epic Tale written exclusively for Svenn Blog:

Booty Bay. I removed a gauntlet and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. Plate mail is hardly the attire of choice for a tropical southern climate like this pirate city but I am a servant of the Light. Servants of the Light don’t abandon their armor for culottes just because they feel a little warm. I slid my hand back into my gauntlet and made my way into the labyrinthine maze of Booty Bay. As I walked, I kept a sharp eye out and one hand on my sword. This town had a reputation. I narrowed my eyes as a beefy Tauren passed unnecessarily close to me, nearly bumping my shoulder. He let out a guffaw at my low, annoyed growl. My lips narrowed; I was sorely tempted to teach this scoundrel a lesson but I restrained myself and moved on. There would be time enough another day to rid this city of its filth.

Soon enough, I found myself in the dark cool recesses of the Salty Sailor Tavern. The Salty Sailor isn’t a place you might expect to find a paladin such as myself but I once did a favor for a goblin named Whiskey Slim back in my younger days. Ever since then I’ve always found a warm welcome and an open barstool at Nixxrax’s watering hole. I settled down and ordered a grog, enjoying the way the cool foam slid down my parched throat. It had been a long day and my plate was wearing heavy. Suddenly I heard a squeaky voice from around the proximity of my shin.

“My, you’re a tall one! I sure wish you’d been around the Arena earlier today!”

Frowning, I looked down just in time to see a small, pink-haired gnome hop up onto the stool next to me. “Mind if I ask what your specialty is?” he shrilled, adjusting his spectacles.

“I specialize in retribution. Might I inquire as to whom I am speaking?” I asked frigidly.

“Oh! Dinky Dolittle, at your service! Pleased to meet you!” And he held out a tiny hand for me to clasp. I tried my hardest not to break it as we shook hands.

“I am pleased to meet you as well, Sir Dolittle.” I said gravely. “Am I to understand that you had some trouble in the vicinity of the arena?” I felt concern take hold of me. While the gnome was of a cheerful disposition, he had clearly undergone some trying ordeal. His armor was in poor shape; pieces hung haphazardly at every angle. He was quite small (as gnomes are apt to be; they are not a large race by any means) and I felt certain that someone had taken advantage of him, if not outright abused him.

“Oh yes,” said the gnome. “I was running by the Gurubashi Arena this afternoon when I heard the challenge issued for a fighter to come forth and take the prize. As there seemed to be no one about but myself, I thought to steal into the arena and take the treasure. That’s when it happened. A huge Tauren, much more powerful than me, came out of nowhere and ganked me. Obviously he made off with the treasure as I lay helplessly on the arena floor. When I was myself again, I yelled at him but all he had to say was ‘Kek!’” The gnome looked defeated and listless as he swilled his half-empty mug of grog. “I wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it so I just tried to get out of there but he harassed me every step of the way. It took me seven tries to make it back to the road. I don’t even want to think about how much it’s going to cost to repair my armor!” Dinky Dolittle took a long swig and sighed.

I was incensed. “This is an outrage!” I cried. “The arena is supposed to exist so that all may have a fair chance at the treasure. That you were so ignobly outmatched was treacherous; that you were thence harassed so foully is not to be borne. This knave must be taught a lesson!” I banged my mailed fist on the bar, causing our mugs to jump into the air. Nixxrax glared at me from behind the counter and I surriptitously brushed splinters of wood away from my place. Oops. “Sir Dolittle, make haste to finish thy grog. Vengeance awaits; we ride!” Startled, the gnome tried to gulp his beer and spilled most of the rest of it down his moustaches. He hastily jumped down from his stool and furling his wand cried “Onward and upward!”

Outside the entrance to the pirate city, we mounted and rode. Like grim death, we hastened to the Gurubashi Arena, not speaking the entire way. One there, we tethered our mounts a small ways away in the brush and sat down to refresh ourselves for battle. Together we made our plans. “Sir Dolittle, you shall only observe from the stadium benches. Be careful not to enter the arena floor lest you be drawn into the conflict. You have suffered enough cruelty today and I would not have you suffer more. I alone shall deal with this malcontent and I shall slay him.”

“Sounds good to me!” piped my tiny, tired friend. I could see that the day’s evil had worn on him. I vowed not to fail. Just then I heard the challenge issue throughout the arena and the surrounding area.

“Wish me luck, friend. Come, let us move to the arena.”

Stealthily, my hooves making hardly any noise, I moved to the floor of the arena. I saw no one about. Could it be that the coward who had harassed my friend was too afraid to show his face to me? Had he abandoned the arena now that all sport was done? Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. I spat on the ground. “You!” I said with fury. “I should have known it would be one of your kind.” Before me stood the Tauren with whom I had brushed shoulders earlier…and he was a death knight.

“Kek!” laughed the Tauren.

I did not speak his barbarian tongue but I understood him to be mocking me. I was only too happy to assume the Blessing of Might and raise my sword to rid the world of this abomination. “Taste my steel, putrescence!” I shouted and charged....

Hallow's End Harmony

2009-10-28T08:30:00.016-08:00

Svenn is at it once again; a new holiday brings a new song. As with the "Brewfest Blues", this was orriginally written for the amuesement of his guildies...

As sung to the tune of "Goldeneye" by Tina Turner

See exclamations in the city

Offering quests for Hallow’s End

See him burning all Goldshire

Get some buckets, flames to fend

Headless-guy I found his weakness

Headless-guy he’ll do what I please

Headless-guy no time for sweetness

But DPSWill bring him to his knees

You’ll never know how I pugged groups just to kill you

You’ll never know how it feels

to be the one without your mount

You’ll never know the days, the nights, the tears I’ve cried

But now my time has come

And time, time, it’s time to ride

See him move throughout the graveyard

Feel him rise up from the ground

Other toons they gather round him

If I had him I wouldn’t let him live

Headless-guy no ring or helmet

Gonna loot him on the spot

Headless-guy I’ll grind forever

It’ll take forever for the mount to drop

You’ll never know how it feels

to be the one without your mount

You'll never know how it feels

To get so close and be denied

It’s a snake and freezing trap

I’ve got for you tonight

Revenge is to kiss,

Hit capped- I won’t miss

Now I’ve got you in my sight

With a Headless-guy,

Headless, Headless-guyyyyyyyy

With a Headless-guy

Monday Munchies

2009-10-26T13:44:00.008-08:00

Today's tastey guest post comes from Aubrey over at NJ Fresh. Svenn asked her to come up with some quick recipes for some snacks to "Nom" on while WoWing. She is not a WoWer herself (she's more of an FPS girl), but Svenn would recommend you have your cooking skill up to at least 200 before attempting these recipes.

Recipe #1:
SHORTCUT THIN CRUST PIZZA
Large restaurant style tortillas (as many as you want)
Tomato sauce
Grated Cheese (mozzarella works best)
Any other toppings you like

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce on each of the tortillas. Sprinkle with cheese and any other topping you are using. (Try not to overdo the cheese and toppings - remember this is a thin pizza).
Place the tortillas on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or until cheese has melted. Cut into wedges and serve hot (or cold!).

Recipe #2:
BONELESS BUFFALO WINGS....Warning: you may need some fire resist gear for these:)
2-3 chicken breasts, cubed
1 cup flour
1 egg, beaten with 2 tbsp milk
Salt and pepper
Oil for frying
For the sauce:
1/2 cup hot sauce (like Frank's Red Hot)
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika

Season the flour and the egg mixture with salt and pepper. Coat the chicken cubes in flour, shaking off the excess. Coat the cubes in the egg mixture, then put back into the flour and coat the cubes thoroughly.
In a large cast iron skillet, or heavy pan, heat the oil to about 375 degrees. (To test this, flick a little bit of water into the oil. If it pops, it's ready.) Working in batches, carefully drop in the chicken pieces and fry on both sides until golden brown and are just firm to the touch. Drain on a paper towel.
Mix together the hot sauce, melted butter, chili powder and paprika in a bowl. Dip the fried chicken pieces into the sauce until well coated. Serve with bleu cheese dressing and celery sticks.

Thanks to Aubrey for sharing her unique talents with us. Head over to NJ Fresh to check out more delicious selections from her kitchen.

Brewfest Blues

2009-10-23T07:28:00.004-08:00

This little ditty was first posted on FIST's guild website, and since it met with moderately good reviews there Svenn figured he would shamelessly repost it here. I know Brewfest is soooo last month and all, but Svenn had an idea for a new song for Hallow's End, and figured he should put up his other song first. Enjoy.

As sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's "Knockin on Heaven's Door"

Coren, drop the mount for me
I don’t wanna run you anymore
Two more tries left but I got to pee
I feel like I’m a pass out on the floor

Pass, pass, passed out on the floor
anit drinkin DireBrew no more
Pass, pass, passed out on the floor
Ah man my head’s gonna be sore

Coren, I don’t want no mole machine
Can’t use no trinkets anymore
No Kodo mount, I could scream
I feel like I’m a pass out on the floor

Pass, pass, passed out on the floor
anit doin Brew Fest no more
Pass, pass, passed out on the floor
At least I got the BRD tour

-Svenn

Spotlight Expecting!

2009-10-21T07:10:00.006-08:00

New addition to the Svenn and Grayce clan is inbound!

Name: Boy: Phineas aka "Finn"/ Girl: Abigail aka "Abby".... not set in stone yet, we have time yet to nail down a name:)

Number of Alts: Addition number 3 to the Svenn clan, but certainly not an Alt!

Favorite Toon: Svenn does not play favorites.

Hometown/ Where are you now: Nice and warm inside mommy, who is not as warm in Alaska:)

Favoritie Food: Nothing yet, though Mom has been eating some weird stuff lately.... French toast at like 2 in the morning!?!

Pets: None yet. The cat does like to curl up on Mom's belly which is super heated thanks to me:)
1 Well known Fact about you: I will be spoiled rotten by the Grandparents as always.

1 Little Known fact about you: I am already in training to be a championship kickboxer, Mom's innards make a great workout space/ punching bag.

Your greatest WoW moment: Really bad internet connection at my current location, no 3G coverage, and WiFi is spotty at best, so no WoW for me :(

Your greatest moment outside of WoW: Pretty hard to nail down, in no particular order I would say; zygote was fun, blastocyst was alright, embryo rocks- can you say photo op?, oh and growing a heart and some sort of nerves and whatnot. I'm sure I will have more later, but right now, that's about where I'm at.

Anything else you would like to share (IRL or Game related): What's with the third degree? Geese, come back in 7-8months- you'll have more than enough to keep you busy then.

Magnatuars and Jormungars and Yetis Oh My!

2009-10-20T09:41:00.007-08:00

Over the weekend FIST downed the first encounter in 10man ToC, and with it, took another big step forward.....at the best and worst possible time. Why is that you ask?

Worst:

FIST is a Holiday crazy guild and, well, Hallow's End is upon us. The lure of the Headless Horseman, eating candy until you puke, and yet another globe spanning holiday event will surely be enough to derail raiding for a few weeks. Inevitably, once FIST gets back around to hitting up ToC as a guild, knowledge will have been lost and fights will have to be relearned.

Best:

The holiday keeps the pressure off. Svenn will have plenty of time to gather mats for flasks, etc. before the next raid start time. It also will provide some extra time for his now, not so secret, side project- Helmuth the Hunter (Lvl 72.... and yes the plan is to tank with him too:) ). Also, Grad School started back up for Svenn this week, which will inevitable take its toll on what precious little free time he has left.

Anyways, Svenn blanked on the screenie- sorry (I'll make sure to get one next time). Gratz to all involved in yet another FIST First!

Murlocs

2009-10-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

You and I both know that no one wants to face a pack of angry murlocs alone. And they’re always angry, as anyone can tell. If you’re close enough to observe a murloc, chances are it’s running toward you, getting ready to gank you, screaming angrily (“Grlrlrlrlrlrlrllrrrrr!”) or trying to fire off a spell. Hotheaded much? You know it. Which is why we love to hunt them down, slay their kith and kin and steal their body parts for assorted recipes. Now I can’t deny that murlocs make some tasty soups and stews. I confess that I’ve eaten my share of murloc menu but that was before. Before what, you want to know?
Before I met Murry.

I’m a rogue by class and assassination by spec (as well as by personality; don’t cross me) so it’s no surprise that I was asked to help rid the Elywnn Forest of murlocs. They’re slimy and gross and they were bogging up some of the prettier areas and the nobles’ daughters were getting all squeaky about it. Somebody had to go in and do the dirty work and I thought it might as well be me. I’m a girl, yes, but I never really fit in with all those nobles’ daughters and everyone thinks I’m kind of strange anyway. If I’m gonna be strange, I might as well make some cash doing it, you know? So off I go, hacking the fin folk left and right and really not doing too bad for myself all things considered. Occasionally I’d have to rest and eat something, possibly go bandage myself or drink a potion, but seriously, I didn’t find killing the fish faces to be hard work.

One night, after a long and satisfying day of frog finishing, I climbed into my bedroll only to find it occupied—and sopping wet. Holding a fiery torch aloft, I could see that my new bag mate was none other than a murloc—a very small, old and wrinkled murloc. “Aaagh!” I squawked, in a fierce rogue-like way. I dropped my torch and scrabbled backward, groping for my dagger. Someone may tell you that I failed to vanish at this point but don’t believe them. That is just an ugly rumor.

“Peace.” said the old murloc, extending a slimy paw toward me. Well actually, he said “GrlrlrlrrrrrLLLLLrrruuuurrrLLrUU!” but I found out later that he’d put some kind of elixir in my water so that we could understand each other. “I am unarmed and can do nothing to harm you, rogue. Tell me why you slay my brethren.”

I had a bit of a dilemma at this point. I had never assumed murlocs to be cognizant of anything other than eating, breathing and possibly shiny seashells. The fact that they thought of themselves as “brethren” made my answer of “for cash?” seem a little, how can I put it, unacceptable? Plus, I didn’t believe this guy when he said he was unarmed. I was willing to bet my thistle tea that he was one of those oracle spell casters. Dude was probably getting ready to blast me out of my leather boots even as we spoke. I swallowed hard and replied: “Well, you guys are kind of icking up the place and you’re pretty rude to passersby, you know with the killing of people and looting of their personal belongings, etc. I mean, that’s my job! Plus, there’s that corpse y’all have hidden over there that people keep trying to find. What’s that all about? Can you see where we might be a teense upset about that?” I made a small space between my finger and thumb.

“Hmm.” Said Murry, who still had yet to tell me his name. “I am sorry that your species alliance is unenlightened enough to include us or to at least acknowledge that others have a different but acceptable way of being. Perhaps slime, while distasteful to some (said with a purse of his mouth toward me) is eminently desirable to others.” He held up his arm to admire the silvery trail sliding down toward his torso. Grunting with satisfaction, he went on. “As for the human’s corpse, we keep it because we want something in return from you.”

“Lemme get this straight,” I said, scratching my head with my gauntlet. “You think slime is awesome and want us to accept you as you are, yes?”
“Yes.”
“AND you want something else?!”
“Yes!” said Murry, sounding offended. He sealed his lips together and crossed his arms. Mucous splattered onto my pillow.
I sighed. “And what is this mysterious thing you want.?”
“We want Ice Cold Mrlrlrlrlriiiiilk.” he said with dignity.
“Milk?!” I said incredulously. “MILK?! Ice Cold Milk?! You’re keeping a corpse because of MILK?!”
“Yes!” he replied, sounding offended. “Our people have terrible heartburn. It makes us very grumpy. Not one of us has gotten a good night’s sleep for years despite sleeping on our left sides and propping our pillows, etc. Ice Cold Milk would help us feel better and then MAYBE we wouldn’t feel so inclined to kill every passing noble’s daughter though honesty I think we’re doing you a favor there, if you ask me. “

People, I swear it is the truth. That old murloc asked me for Ice Cold Milk. I developed a lucrative business smuggling Ice Cold Milk to the murlocs in the area. Oh sure, they still killed a few nobles’ daughters every now and then. I mean, things had to stay authentic in the Forest. But it’s because of my years spent doing business with Murry that I eventually became an apothecary and invented my own elixir: Milk of Murlocnesia. Better than Pepto! If it looks a little slimy to you, just ignore that. Trick of the light.

Shaara
WoW Anthropologist
Echo Isles, US

Author Introduction

2009-10-16T07:44:00.005-08:00

Over the next few weeks, with hopes to make it a permanent semi-regular feature, Svenn will be posting a few guest spots in addition to his normal posts. He was going to post the first of these spots today but, so eloquently was it written (and a bit different in nature from his usual mundane fare), that he felt a proper introduction was in order.

Last week Svenn asked a fellow Guildie (who happens to be his sister) Shaara to write up a little something on Social Constructs in MMOs, and she responded in true literary fashion.

Shaara is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in English, and a focus on Medieval Literature. She is an accomplished writer in her own right, author of several blogs, and is an active advocate for continued/increased funding for Public Libraries. She has always been an avid reader and prolific writer, and enjoys a good fantasy book from time to time.

Shaara's approach to WoW makes casual players look hard-core. She is just as happy parked at a bar stool in Dal chatting it up as she is doing a few quests in the Northrend starting zones. Attempts have been made to reform her from a life of social interactions and observation to something more "productive" such as leveling; they have met with failure...which is good, considering the nature of the assignment Svenn put before her. You will have to wait till Monday to see what she has to say but knowing her, it will have something to do with these guys....

Bling vs Zing

2009-10-15T12:01:00.004-08:00

Bling: There has been a lot of talk lately about gear levels, what drops where, and wish lists a mile long. Understandably, we all want better gear, and it goes to follow that better gear will improve our respective characters. However, once the applicable caps have been met (ie. Defense, Hit, etc.) the improvements from gear are incremental at best, and met with diminishing returns at worst (ie. Over-stacking of stats above the caps).

Zing: Players have done incredible and innovative things in the face of gear challenges. Ensidia (Top European Raid Guild) was clearing Naxx 25 as soon as their first 20 players hit 80… in their lvl70 epics. A US guild cleared Ulduar 10 in all blues. A hunter pet (Bubbles the Gorilla) tanked Hodir 25. How do we reconcile apparent gearing requirements with the above mentioned feats?

True, the players involved in these exploits are not the average. They represent a slice of the top tier of players, have worked together for long periods of time, and are intimately familiar with the mechanics of raiding, and most of the particular fights they chose to tackle. Besides their access to something most of us don’t have; Time (and all the benefits that come with it, ie. Gold, rep, mats, etc.), very little separates them from the average raider. How then, are they so “good”?

Communication, and Knowledge. Svenn has beat communication to death in previous posts, so will instead focus on knowledge. There are different levels of “knowing” your game. On one level is the theory-crafting of stats, rotations, etc. There is much to be gained through critical analysis of those components of a given class’s role. Most of the work has been done for the casual raider through sites like Elitist Jerks. There are, however, pitfalls to these “cookie cutter” specs/rotations. While they are advocated by the “experts” (with the math to back it up) as the way to maximize a toon’s performance through DPS/Heal throughput, they can lead to tunnel vision.

Another level of knowledge is easier to gain, yet more difficult to apply. That is, knowing all of your class’s abilities and where they can fit into a raid. In this day of power-leveling and BG experience, of Xp bonuses through Heirloom Items and level granting, of an overall improvement in the leveling experience; players arrive at 80 with new toons and no idea of what they can really do. They slap together the approved spec/glyph combo and go on their merry way, and do fine- that is to say what is expected of them… as long as nothing unexpected happens.

The easy part of this “equation” is to open the spell book tab and reread the tool tip for every single ability. There will be many abilities that are not a part of any “min/max” rotation. There are multiple reasons why they will not find their way into any standardized rotation; they are utility abilities that don’t necessarily lend themselves to the maximization of your particular class role, and as such get discarded as a waste. This leads to the not so easy part of the “equation”, how those abilities can lend themselves to success for the raid.

To understand this interplay you must overlay these abilities with a particular encounter and determine if and where any of them can apply. This is not easy to accomplish on the fly. If the mechanics of the fight are know a lot of this work can be accomplished ahead of time. However to maximize the use of these abilities “on the fly”, or in reaction to an unforeseen situation (bad pull, positioning, etc.) there must be an in-depth knowledge of these “utility moves”. Even veteran players can benefit from going back through the old spell book every once in awhile to review some of their little used abilities, see what changes have occurred over the patches, and see if they can’t find some utility for them in the content they are currently running.

In the immortal words of G.I. Joe, “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!”

Stood Up!

2009-10-13T16:37:00.005-08:00

WARNING: Rant follows...

The other night Svenn pugged Heroic ToC and got bailed on! It was a partial pug to help out a guildie, Sala with his very new level 80 priest. He knew going into it that the Sala was not going to put up fantastic numbers as it was the first heroic run for the toon. Not an issue as Inno the super rogue agreed to come along and pick up the DPS slack (at over 3k DPS he can too!). Svenn knew the healer from somewhere so no worries there, all that was left was to grab a 3rd DPS. A warrior was quickly found to fill in and the group headed in.

After a quick run through on normal, Svenn reset the instance to Heroic and the group headed back in. The first fight was a bit rougher than usual but no real issues, and victory was achieved sans wipe. The luck of the draw was against us and boss number two was the Argent Confessor Paletress. Again, a bit shaky, but again the kill was achieved without a wipe. With only the Black Knight left, Svenn felt pretty confident that he had lucked into a good pug and that Sala was going to have a decent shot at some good loot. Phase 1 and 2 of the BK went smoothly, then quite suddenly it was all over- a wipe on Phase 3.

Svenn was not really sure why they wiped on Phase 3, but was pretty confident the second time would be the charm. Alas, that was a question not to be answered as the Warrior abruptly dropped group and logged. No explanation, no apologies, no nothing! "Coward!" were the derisive cries in /party, but was he? Considering that he was behind the tank in DPS/damage done, and no where near Inno in whatever metric you choose, Svenn thinks he was pretty bold. To quit a group which carried a him on the backs of a heroic effort by one DPS a Healer and a Tank, after only one attempt that fell just short- is nothing short of classy. So, thanks buddy for reminding Svenn yet again why he doesn't pug, even if it's just one slot.

/END RANT

To be fair, the Warriors DPS wasn't all that bad at 2k but, it takes more than that to stay ahead of Svenn anymore...a real winner none-the-less.

Monday Montage: Discovery

2009-10-12T08:58:00.009-08:00

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said:
"Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone,
Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?"
"Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly, wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day:
'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l; speak and say--"
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows his teeth tonight.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
He lifts his teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he paced his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night.
Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
A light! A light! At last a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"
~Joaquin Miller

Motivation

2009-10-08T08:02:00.003-08:00

100th Post!

2009-10-06T16:19:00.008-08:00

Has it been that long? Normally Wednesdays here on the "Svenn Blog", as it's know colloquially, are reserved for the Guild Spotlight feature, but today Svenn has a little something different in store. 100 post may not seem like much, but believe me, if you're the one writing them it adds up quick. To celebrate Svenn surviving this long in the blogosphere, he will be taking a look back at some more top 5's, specifically Svenn Blog top 5's.

Top 5 Referring sites (because it's always important to keep up the good relations with one's cyber neighbors:)

1. Coffee with Sargeras: No surprise there, even though this internet titan is retired, it seems his site still sends readers Svenn's way. Thanks again Brian for the guest post.
2. Blogger.com: I guess some people do use the view next blog feature.
3. The FIST website: Woot guildie support! Thanks Jon for adding the link to the site.
4. Google.com: Ask google, they probably would have finished 1st if Svenn added up all the different sub-categories that his site tracker broke google down into.
5. BlogAzeroth.com

Top 5 Posts

1. Sargeras Say Read This or Else: It is no coincidence that the most viewed post was authored by the top referring site's very own Sargeras.
2. Monday Montage: Moving Forward: Who doesn't like to look at pictures of dead raid bosses?
3. Healbot Hero: Svenn may need to do a follow up to this post, as it also generated quite a few search results
4. Third Party Option: Ah conjecture and wishful thinking, you are loved.
5. Speed Tanking: Svenn would have expected this one to be higher on the list, maybe most tanks had it nailed down before he did.

Top 5 Search Terms (Svenn's top 5, not necessarily the most frequent)

1. Killsies: killsies!?! I love it!
2. Svenn's block spot: There were many variations on Svenn Blog/ Misadventures but block spot was Svenn's favorite. How perfect is that mis-spelling, what with shields being a big part of pally tanking and all.
3. cot4 in time bugeado: bugeado? No need to bug it, just make sure you have a pally with you:)
4. Healbot: A huge number a variations on the Healbot theme from: healbot for tanking- to: healbot-how do I show incoming heals, easily makes this the most popular search term. Svenn is no authority on Hbot and hopes these people found what they were looking for as his post was more along a what you can use it for and not so much as a how to use it... any healbot experts out there interested in a Healbot How To Guide guest spot?
5. farming badges vh wiping: ouch! Did Svenn write something about wiping in VH? Forget that ever happened:)

Well, there you have it. Thanks to all of you readers who continue to come back to The Misadventures, even if you aren't a very talkative bunch ;) and a special thanks to those of you who have kept Svenn going in his blogging endeavors!

Brewfest.. more like snooze fest

2009-10-06T08:03:00.013-08:00

Alternately Titled: I went to Brewfest and I all I got was a Hangover!

Svenn normally tries to avoid Holidays, not that he is a Grinch, just that he has a lot of other projects that keep getting put of. So, when a holiday hits and our festive guild of achievement crazed players head off to collect the latest goodies, Svenn retreats to his batch of Alts to get in a few levels and take advantage of the time off from raiding.

This Brewfest thing however, was the exception. While he held out for most of the first week, once Grayce pointed out that there were shiny epics (Badge of Heroism Gear Trinket equivalents, along with some +170 Stamina trinkets) he couldn't resist. While Svenn's underplayed alts all received some decent trinket upgrades, all Svenn got was a headache.....

at least he kept a photo journal to remember it the next day.

Defining "Mains"

2009-10-05T13:43:00.006-08:00

For those of us altoholics with multiple lvl 80s, defining a main is a hard thing to do. Browsing through the Guild feature of WoWheros reveals the simple fact that gear score simply isn’t the answer to the question. 'X' has 3 of the top 10 toons in the guild, from a gear standpoint, all separated by a few points. All of these toons can perform multiple roles, further complicating the question (DK: Tank/DPS, Druid: Tank/Ranged DPS, Shaman: Heals/Ranged DPS).

Svenn has 4 lvl 80’s and another 2 on the way up. From a gear score/lvl of play standpoint Cromm (Destro lock) is his best toon, however, multiple attempts to raid on Cromm have met with failure. For whatever reason, Svenn brings a greater synergy to the raid than Cromm and thus has been identified as his de-facto “main” (must be those tasty Pally Buffs).

While this is, at times, frustrating, he still rather enjoys tanking on Svenn and understands that it is for the good of the raid -and this blog:). The trouble lies in Raiders who are not happy in their "main's" current role, whom have alternate 80s at their disposal. There is a feeling that these toons should be entitled to raid access as well, and THEY SHOULD - to an extent….

IF:

An alternate player with the requisite gear/skill set is available to fill the position. (ie. 'Y' fills in on heals so 'Z' can DPS on 'A').
The Alt meets “minimum” dungeon requirements, understanding that some minimums are more flexible than others (ie. Tank Defense Cap vs. DPS output- though DPS should be able to “keep up”).
The swap of Main to Alt still provides the desired raid utility (this is also a squishy concept which plays into group synergy, buffs/de-buffs, class presence, etc.)

The summation of the above provisions can be looked at as: Does the switch Help, Hinder, or Harm the raid? Helping the raid is always a good thing. Hindering the raid is ok (not desirable, but understandable), minor setbacks can be worked through if the current role has led to burnout or just plain misery- the point is to have fun and see new content together. Hurting the raid should be avoided at all costs, while it may make the experience better for the individual switching, it will make the others in the raid work that much harder and decrease the collective enjoyment.

Raiding is a corporate activity and as such it is incumbent upon raiders to help each other out. If a toon switch is what is necessary to continue enjoying raiding than, it should be accommodated (within reason). That may mean ponying up some of your time to run some heroics for gear/badges to get the “alt” up to snuff- something multiple raiders can pitch in on. It also means some work on the part of the raider switching; pass on their knowledge of their current raid role to their “heir-apparent”, and to do the work of figuring out their new class’s role in the raid and how to maximize their performance in that role. This will minimize disruption to the raid as well as alleviate any hurt feelings on the part of the raid as everyone will have done their part to ensure continued success.

* This does not address the investment the guild has made into the raider's previous "main" through drops, etc. But, as the old main will still be present in the guild, the issue is not as important; the guild will still have access to that toon should the need for it be unavoidable.

Sorry for the wall of text. Thoughts? leave a comment

Flashback Friday: Heigan

2009-10-02T07:23:00.006-08:00

FIST's First Heigan Kill as told by Rewodahs (March 09)

A small group of Fisties gathered at the Naxx entrance. Another meeting with Heigan had been scheduled. It was decided that '5' wipes worth of "Dancing lessons" would be adequate training for the evening, lol. The fact that a full complement of 10 was not available did not faze anyone as the outcome was highly certain anyway...lessons only, no degree.

As the group buffed up and prepared its ranks were eventually filled as more Fisities were cajoled into joining and one non-Fistie offered to help. When all were ready, we made our way inside and moved toward our first encounter. The trash mobs offered little resistance and we were able to move at a relatively quick pace through the instance and entered Heigan's Dance Studio.

Totems were placed in strategic locations to mark the 4 zones. In addition, our contingent of pyromaniacs placed campfires to augment the totem locations. When everyone signalled Corday that they were ready, she made her approach toward Heigan and the "Dance Macabre" had begun.

Healers and ranged fighters rushed to the platform and melee moved to Heigan to help the main tank. Corday waltzed Heigan through the zones in a seemingly effortless motion. Her mastery of the dance was a joy to behold.In attempt after attempt, she consistently performed as one by one others fell around her. She was ably assisted by Svenn who took over when the clod with the 2 left feet (Heigan) tripped her up.

Each try was an improvement on the one before and the group was getting more into the swing of things after each "lesson." It was joked that the bodies of those who fell were useful as zone markers for those that remained.Aside from being killed by the ooze that gushed up from cracks in the floor at each zone sequence, Heigan also had the ability to give one "Dance Fever" if you got too close to him. Rather then help you dance, its mainly fatal, lol.

Hamm, otherwise known as Lord of the Dance,along with Corday, were able to run the phase II zone gauntlet with relative ease and kept the whole performance moving along until the "final" curtain, lol. As time went on , most players were getting a better feel for the rythm of the dance and lasting longer and longer. Ginn, the crazed chef, at peril to himself,was even able to get off some autoshots during the phase II speed runs.

After about 7 or 8 tries it was decided that we would make one last try (or 2). Corday started up the band and we all raced to our positions. Smoothly and proficiently we went through our paces. As to be expected, there were a few losses but the main body of the group held up and continued to "Boogie" the night away. Back and forth they moved with Heigan in a dance that the judges from Dancing with the Stars would definitely give all 10s.

And, after a while, whats this, it cant possibly be true, Heigan is DOWN !!! Finally, after all the effort and frustration the sweet smell of victory is in the air. Fist has earned its dancing shoes. Kudos to all involved.

Thanks to Rew, for recording this epic tale in such grandeur and story telling prowess.

Top 5's

2009-10-01T07:55:00.007-08:00

Svenn is a big fan of Jack Black, he is also a fan (though not to the same extent) of John Cusack, so naturally High Fidelity is up there in his pantheon of great movies. In High Fidelity the characters spend a good deal of time making "Top Five" lists. Svenn likes Top 5 lists; they are shorter then Top 10 lists but have more wiggle room than just a flat out "my favorite thing ever is" statement. And so, Svenn will be sharing some Top 5 lists (this won't be every week, just kinda as he thinks of them) and would love to know what your Top 5s are as well.

First up: Zones (in no particular order)

1. Dun Morogh: Not the whole thing, just the Dwarf/Gnome starting area (I think its called Coldridge Valley). This was the first place Svenn saw in-game and it still holds special memories of complete noobdom. Also, Christmas Time in Dun Morogh is a great Machinima Music Vid.

2. Un'goro Crater: The whole Jurassic Park type theme here really works for Svenn. The first time he went here he got stomped by one of the many random elite dinos wandering around, but that just adds to the excitement.

3. Felwood: Wha?!? Yes, the place was ridiculously long and involved a ton of running, but the demonic rune stones and felcloth drops were worth it back in the day. Not so much anymore, but Svenn still gets a little giddy when a rune drops and the box pops up saying "looting this item will bind it to you".

4. Nagrand: A sportsman's paradise. Sure some quests re enforce a negative pattern of hunting to excess reminiscent of the US West during the 1800s, but unlike the buffalo those crazy talbuk just keep coming back for more.

5. The Sholazar Basin: The lush Green of the basin is a welcome change to the rest of Northrend and its dreary, mostly snow covered landscapes. The fact that it is veritable gold mine for gatherers be you skinner, miner, or herbalist is an added bonus. (Svenn still maintains that it is the best "at level" Xp-per-hour zone in the entire game).

There you have it, what are your favorite zones? Have any other Top 5 topics? Let us know, leave a comment:)

Guild Spotlight: ???

2009-09-30T07:35:00.004-08:00

Sadly, Svenn did not receive any submissions for today's Spotlight. Is it because his guildies don't really like him or are to lazy to fill one out? Or, is it something a bit more sinister? Since starting the "spotlight" back in May, several of the feature's players have left FIST. These players all exited within a week of being featured, giving rise to a theory that the Svenn Blog Spotlight is jinxed. While the amount of occurrences is limited when compared to the more famous Sports Illustrated Curse, FIST is a superstitious lot.....

Anyways, the Spotlight will be back shinning next, can't wait to find out who will brave the jinx.

Svenn goes to School

2009-09-28T10:16:00.003-08:00

In addition to various course for the Army, Svenn's tract for his Masters has started back up. This means less time for WoW and, unfortunately less time for "The Misadventures". As Svenn continues to try to migrate this blog away from 'what I did last night when I logged on' to a more meaningful format, the time required per post has increased. That being said, Svenn will be posting a bit less and hopefully there will be some more posts by way of guest bloggers. If any of you readers want a shot at posting here feel free to leave a comment or email Svenn at cptsvenn@gmail.com .

Spotlight FeyAvalon

2009-09-23T18:37:00.004-08:00

FEY!!!

Name: Karla

Number of Alts: FeyAvalon (1st), TealSpectre(2nd), GixxerFay(3rd)

Favorite Toon: FeyAvalon because she is my 1st and I adore <3 ... It's my favorite name. I'm a fairy lover :) Fey (fairy) Avalon (King/Qween of a kingdom or Fairy Kingdom) there are numerous meanings for Avalon.

Hometown/ Where are you now: Paramount, California where the earthquakes hit and forest fires spread!

Favoritie Food: Alfredo pasta with shrimp ALSO stuffed ravioli with cheese.

Pets: Bambi (DeerHead chiwawa) ~> Pic of Bambi attached. He reminds me of the small Christmas deer pet <3

1 Well known Fact about you: I greet everyone in CAPS.

1 Little Known fact about you: I have a motorcycle 2007 Suzuki 600cc and TEAL is my favorite color <3

Your greatest WoW moment: When I joined FIST and grew with them. Also a few other guildy hang outs and stuff I can't remember at this very moment.

Your greatest moment outside of WoW: Graduating with my Bachelors degree in computer science at 20 yrs old and receiving a diamond promise ring from my 4 1/2 year b/f.

Anything else you would like to share (IRL or Game related): I've applied at Blizzcon twice and haven't received a call back. WHY!!! I sound like an addict. >:)~

Monday Montage: Massacre

2009-09-21T18:28:00.005-08:00

Sunday, Svenn indulged Haager in a go at Arena Combat. With a whopping 80 resilience and even less PvP experience, the results were less than desirable.

Match after match, Haager got his arena flag jammed through his face.....

Fortunately, there were plenty of gnome sized boxes in which to ship him home after the massacre was over.

Coming Out

2009-09-18T07:18:00.009-08:00

This is long overdue. Why has Svenn has waited so long to come out? Maybe he was scared of what others would think; would they look at him differently? Maybe he feared never being able to walk through his beloved Stormwind again; could he stand up to life as an exile? Maybe he thought he would lose his credibility; what would his guild mates think? Whatever the reasons, Svenn can no longer live a lie. It is time to come clean and hope that in this new and enlightened age of faction transfers he will still be accepted.

For several months now; during raids, heroic runs, and even *gasp* the occasional battleground, Svenn has been drinking the juice of traitors. That's right, having tried them both, Svenn infinitely prefers the Horde flavor of Mountain Dew's promotional Game Fuel over the Alliance crap. It's citrusy flavor is in every way superior to the blueberry fruit punchy Alliance stuff. While he is sure that Horde Soda is made from the tears of Ally Holy Priests- gathered by Undead Rogues in BGs, and that the simple act of drinking it will condemn his soul, he drinks it anyways. Svenn revels in the 'sacriliciousness' of it, and will no longer hide his shameful addiction from the world, but rather embrace it and move forward into the light of the new world order.

What fuels your game?

Healbot Hero

2009-09-17T07:23:00.003-08:00

Svenn posted a few pics recently of FIST's latest progression kills in Ulduar; among which was a screen shot of his UI with Healbot up and running. This has prompted several questions as to why a tank would want to have Hbot taking up valuable real estate on an admittedly already over crowded screen. There are several reasons Svenn will attempt to lay out as he tries to makes the case for all tanks to run Healbot or some similar type addon (and yes healing is one of them, but a very minor one, so all you warriors don't tune out quite yet).

Situational Awareness. Svenn is huge on being able to see everything that is going on around him. Maybe it comes from to many years in the Army, but he feels it important to his decision making cycle to know everyone else in the raids status. Healbot allows this through an easy display which can be set up to show all members of the raid's health bars with their mana/energy/rage/ etc. levels underneath their health bar. This allows Svenn at a glance to see who is taking damage.

Someone besides another tank taking damage prompts questions:
Did an add get lose that Svenn needs to pick up?
Is it splash damage Svenn can direct the player to reposition out of?
Is it just the normal AoE damage inherent in the fight?

This also enhances the knowledge of the flow of the fight damage wise, and allows Svenn to anticipate when he will be getting those big single target heals or when the healer will be busy spamming group heals.

Hbot also allows Svenn to keep tabs on the healers' mana situation. This alows for anticipation of when to use cooldowns, or when off tanking to pitch in a few heals when possible. Additionally, he gets to see everyone else's resources as well, which can be invaluable to help direct the tempo of a fight, ie. "hey rouges, you need to save some energy for the interrupt coming up soon." etc.

Targeting. Svenn uses Healbot in lieu of some macros. Essentially, Healbot allows for "mouse over" targeting of players. Any spell or ability (as far as I know) can be typed into it and assigned a "hot key", ie. Right click= Righteous Defense, ALT+ Right Click= Blessing of Protection and so on.

This allows Svenn to hover over a particular player's frame in Hbot, cast a spell, all while never deselecting his current target. This makes for incredibly fast reaction times while maintaining TPS on your current target. As far as Svenn has tested it, it works for all abilities, though he needs to test if further on other classes. Combine this with the /focus target and /target of targets and /assist functions and it is instant "slew to cue".

Peace of Mind. Healbot can be set up to display incoming heals from other healers (at least other healers running Hbot). This can make the difference between burning a cooldown unnecessarily or waiting for the heal you now know is coming to hit.

Svenn is not trying to sell Healbot to anyone, and is not getting any money from the Healbot creators (though if they are interested we may be able to work out an endorsement deal:). Rather, he is simply trying to say that it is another useful tool in a tank's "kit bag" to help keep a raid up running. Healbot, it's not just for healers anymore.

Spotlight Corday

2009-09-16T07:22:00.003-08:00

The Fabulous Miss Peel

Name: Patricia

# of Alts: 3 80s (Corday, Morgause and wee Emma), plus a couple of banker toons and a druid who is currently living in a shoebox.

Favorite Toon: Corday or Morg, depending on my mood

Hometown: Chicago, by way of DC, San Diego, Philly and Norfolk

Favorite Food: setzuan green beans, spicy peanut noodles, and hummus. Just not all at the same time.

Pets: Two cats: Lucy, who is a proper lady, and Gracie, who is not.

Well known fact: I am an egghead who cannot cook.

Little known fact: What surprises people most is that (aside from the cooking thing) I'm fairly accomplished at girly pursuits -- knitting, sewing, needlepoint. That's what helped me kick my 3-pack-a-day habit -- over six months I made 6 petitpoint pictures, 8 needlepoint pillow covers, and 4 baby sweaters. Anyone need a pillow? Oh, I'm also a classically trained pianist. (Why do you think I type so fast?)

Greatest Wow Moment: It's not one huge moment, just a collection of very pleasant memories hanging with people whose company I enjoy and killing monsters along the way.

Greatest non-Wow moment: When I walked away from a large established theater that was secure but soul-draining, and started my own business serving small non-profit arts organizations. At the time people thought I was nuts, but it seems to have worked out pretty well so far...

EDIT: The answer to everyones question, "What is Corday going to get when she afks for a refill?" -Svenn know's but he can't tell you, us tanks have to have some secrets:)