Married IRL

Pony Island Adventure!

So I banged myself up pretty good yesterday, popping my knee out of place again (old injury), so here I am, not able to really stay at the PC for too long before my knee screams at me ELEVATE ME DAMN IT!

So it’s time to play with my ponies.

No, this is definately not WoW related. So FAR from being WoW related, well, ok, they are both online games… but this is almost like me talking about my secret obsession with Hello Kitty Adventure Island er something… >.>

I play Ponyisland. It’s a lot of fun too. Did you ever play Neopets? I was a HUGE fan of Neopets when I was in college. It was the thing that kept me occupied (that and THESE AMAZING GARGOYLE STORIES GO READ NAO!) while I was fixing random internet lab issues (”Printer’s jammed again.” “Who the hell stuck THAT in there!? WTF?”)

I liked Neopets for all the little games and what not, but honestly, the pets themselves were kinda just fluff. I always thought, wouldn’t it be kinda cool if I could breed a Zafa with a meecha? But nope, I think that was just a bit to much for that site. So, years later, when I’m bored as hell at my old job, a friend of mine mentioned this website called Ponyisland.net, where you could breed with your own ponies. I’ve loved My Little Ponies since I was little. My Gran got me this whole set for a year, where Mom gave me a new pony each month that year. Best. Thing. EVER. Ponies, also, were the only “dolls” I ever played with when I was young that never ended up decapitated and in the toilet.

I hated Barbie. -.-

Aaaaaaanywho, so, friend show’s me PI.net and I’m instantly hooked. Just BAM! Hooked. I’ve got a bunch of accounts, tons of ponies, I’m breeding them left and right, making starters and the whole nine. Questing to get levels, so that I can get Bonus Points to make more AWESOME starters.

They came out with a new race, called Phoenix Ponies. A-DOR-ABLE! I made a bunch of Nixies, and my plan was to make a PI first (three Special gene Nixie!) But then I got more involved in WoW, the ponies kinda fell to the way side, and I got bored and tired of them.

Cut to a few months ago. I’m feeling down, and I’m bored. Down because I’m thinking of Moo, about how much I miss her. Then I remembered, I named a pony after her. I sold my accounts back at PI, so I wasn’t sure if she’d still be there.

I kind of debated going back, thinking if the pony Shar was gone, I’d just set myself up for more of a let down, ya know?

So I was ecstatic to see that her pony was alive and well.  And it got me wanting to go back.  The PI community does have a lot of kids in it, but it’s probably one of the least malicious communities I think I’ve ever encountered.  Like, I mean, you look at the WoW O-boards and go

Troll
Flame
QQ
Something interesting and/or useful
More Trolls

the list could go on and on.

On PI, for the most part, very pleasant crowd.  Granted, it’s a PG only environment, but hey, it’s nice to be able to wade through some clear water after all that crap you just sloshed through over at Wow.com/forums.

Shar’s pony btw?  She chose the colors.  She’s adorable.  And I miss her so much.

Now I’m back to breeding, back to questing, and having fun with it again.  Oh, and because it’s silly, I remember doing this thing called Adoptables too.  Basically, you have like virtual Pet Pets, type deal.  But it’s run by individuals in the community rather than the PI administrators.  I had some Gargoyle adoptables.  I don’t remember where I put them… but they were fun at the time.  Made me a lot of Pony Gold too. XD

Nothing More

Freakin’ HACKERS! Not only did they get the awesome new holy priest and her hubby the BoomTree… but they got our other Ferlol Druid tank.

Srsly, I want to just find these people and destroy their fingers. The guy who hacked the Priest/Druid though, he was a total tool. Sitting there telling my guildies, “Give me a thousand gold and I WON’T delete this toon”?!??!?!?

WTF is that BS! Those authenticators can’t come fast enough.

Priest and Druid got their stuff back relatively quickly, I’m not sure about Kel though. Her hack-assmasterpieceofsh!tOMG THIS ISN’T SAFE FOR YOUR KIDDIES! RAAAAARG!

Ahem, anywho, her acct was hacked in the wee hours of the morning, so not sure wtf Blizz is doing there.

/headdesk

This just sucks. I hate seeing people getting hacked. Its a mental violation, all the work and time people put into these toons. Scares me sometimes. I’m not sure what I’d do if I got hacked. Other than get rip roaringly pissed off. Reformat the drive, that’s #1. After that… I dunno. I have so many toons, they’d have a freakin’ field day. Did we hit another Hacker Time? I mean, the Christmas season was rife with hacks, we had three of them in our guild alone and there were a bunch on our server. According to trade chat, others were hacked too. So WTF Blizz? If this is seasonal (hell, people are off catching some rays right?) then isn’t there a better way to handle every case that comes your way?

I’m not all that into giving constructive advice, I’m still way too ticked off.

Maybe tomorrow.

Random Thoughts

Wrath of the Lich King. Coming out sometime in the future, pretty soon, but not that soon. I think we’ve got the entire summer to get as much raiding done as possible before the expansion hits. Here’s hoping we get to see Illidan! XD

This is an adorable picture btw. Just too funny.

Katamari Damacy this early in the morning makes me bouncy.

Fio’s making me pancakes for my berfday. /cheer

I need to update my list of stuff to do. Now that Squeake’s all tanking and stuff, I have to update. Hrm…

I miss my old domain. T.T RIP silentstephi.com

Playing in LARP is fun again. Getting to play something other than a werewolf is also turning out to be nifty. Ratkin are also batshit crazy.

I’m looking forward to steak tonight. Mmmmm, steak.

Eventually I’ll have another priestly thing to post. Eventually. I swear.

It’s epicly sucks that my level 55 mage can’t get the Ogrimar flame. I was there, on the tent but the freakin’ revelers aggro’d onto her, hit her from UNDER the tent and she went splat. /huff

The summer fest outfit is AWESOME in so many ways.

I can’t wait for the new patch. Stephi needs to go VROOM!

I don’t feel a year older… Oo

Fire Fire!

Sooooo pretty!  I’m getting XP on Phelyx today, but I made like 500g running around Azeroth getting the blossoms for that awesome outfit!

Weeeeeee Fire!

30?!?!!!1one!!!

I just saw the patch notes from 2.4.3

Z.O.M.G.

Here’s the link to the official notes:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

But, what’s got me all HOOBAWAH?

Apprentice riding at 30. 30! Ok, so I only have 2 toons that will benefit from this but… alt making/leveling just got retardedly easier. Imagine having your mount for STV. IMAGINE IT! I can… omg, I see many other alts for other realms… SHUSH! DON’T SAY ANYTHING TO FIO!

<.<

Oh and one more thing:

Bansidhe is freakin’ AWESOME!

These are just sooooooo awesome! <3  Thank you!!!

It’s the wait that kills ya…

I just got my internet back today from the Father’s Day black out, so I’m catching up on a lot of things, but!  I had to mention, that this awesome lady is making me a sig… of well, you’ll see.

I can’t wait to see it! ^.^

All of her sigs that I’ve seen have just looked boatloads of awesome.  Ratter’s was the first one I saw and hit made me go “Ooooh shiny!”

Decisions, Decisions

First things first: Thank you, you warrior tanks of awesome, who have given me little nuggets of pearly wisdom to go by.
Since Wednesday, Blizzard has been screwing with me, I think.  In a good way, maybe?  Let me ’splain.

Went ahead and ran Black Morass twice yesterday, to get our Kara attunement quests done.  Which they are.  It was a snooze fest.  Fio came on his huntard for the first one, then he switched to Gaia and we got the attunement for her.  Both times, I was easy to heal.  I did ok I think on holding aggro on the mini-bosses, and the big bosses, but I think that’s because the biggest aggro magnets were on add duty (BM hunter for first run and Furry warrior for second.)

Though in the second run, Celli did manage to pull Aenous off me T.T  So! Working on threat, indeedy.  Doom sent me this linky to the Tankspot forums about effective life per armor whatsit, and I had Fio translate, because… ok, look.  I am a very simple creatute.  Tell me Strength is good, Dodge Rating is Bad, etc, etc.  With the druid, it was: Look for Armor/Stam/Agility.  You had three or four things that you MUST HAVE, and you can do pretty darn well.  Warriors seem like a different universe.  I know warriors want similar things, but when I try to wrap my brain our the mathmatics, something just freezies up and I just… don’t get it.

So just tell me, is this good, is this bad, what do I need from here?  Ya know?  Trying to figure out for myself is probably going to land me in the crapper in the beginning.

So, right, the part about decisions!

Since Wednesday, I have gotten new stuff:

Gauntlets of the Bold
Legplates of the Bold
Myrmidon’s Headdress
Steam-Hinge Chain of Valor
Thatia’s Self-Correcting Gauntlets

So, now my question: ARG! I have the full Felsteel set Gemmed and Enchanted WHY DID YOU JUST GIVE MEH THINGS I ALREADY HAD UBER OTHER STUFF FOR!?!??! QQ

Ok, that wasn’t much of a question, more like a BBQ fest, but ANYWHO… is it worth it switching out the felsteel stuff for the Bold counterparts and the hat with a meta socket?   The Felsteel has awesome armor compared to the others, but the Bold stuff has more in stats.  I also got my Dabiri’s Enigma and my Adamantine Figurine (aka the PHALLIC) so my trinkets, they be awesome.  Enchanted my chest, so now Squeake’s looking like:

AC: 12440
Def: 517 (yea, I’m way over, need to regem, need something to put in yellow sockets T.T)
Dodge: 14.85%
Parry: 17.57%
Block: 16.68%
HP: 11614 unbuffed
So, do I keep the awesome that is the felsteel set or switch out?  And dear GAWD this sword is slow!  I didn’t realize it before but now that it’s been pointed out to me, ya, the Crystalline Kopesh is very slow.

I’m still having rage issues, even in Black Morass and Shadow Labs.  The SL run I did gave me more of a barometer of how I’d do in a group than the Morass I think, simply because the three DPS in the group didn’t like to watch aggro all that much T.T (”Oh, heehee, I SB crit, SORRY!” /rageoftehstephithatshecan’tgivesqueake)

I’ve also not been keeping Demo Shout or Shield Block up all that much, because they’re just a waste of rage at this point.  When I was in BM, the Shield blocking was ok, but it seemed an expensive way to get that guaranteed Revenge proc, in SL I totally forgot about it, even on bosses.

So yea, I know, I need to read some more on Tank spot, but if I have to keep reading math, I’m gonna go cry in the corner, K?

<3 teh Cay

Victory!

I know, where the H.E. double hockey sticks have I been, right?

See this? See it? That’s what I’ve been doing. Finally got the Squeaker to 70! /cheer

I immediately spec’d her prot to scope out the stats and what not.

The armory is down, but here’s what she’s got so far gear wise:

Head: Felsteel Helm
Neck: Natasha’s Battle Chain
Shoulders: Warchief’s Mantle
Back: Bogstrok’s Scale Cloak
Chest: Breastplate of the Warbringer
Wrist: Sha’tari Wrought Armguards

Gloves: Felsteel Gloves
Legs: Felsteel Leggings
Waist: Fearless Girdle
Boots: Flesh Beast’s Metal Greeves
Ring1: Delicate Eternium Ring
Ring2: Iron Band of the Unbreakable
Trinket1: Charm of Alacrity
Trinket2: Force of Will

Mainhand: Crystalline Kopesh
Shield: Platinum Shield of the Valorous
Gun: Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer

All Blue sockets are Solid Star of Elune, all Reds are Regal Nightseye, and all Yellows are Enduring Talasite. The only thing enchanted right now is her shield with +18 Stam.

All in all, she’s got 11.4K HP unbuffed, 484 def (which is 6 from the cap of 490) and as soon as I get home and can look at her sheet I can post her Dodge/Parry/Block ratings. They range from like 12% to like 14% I think?

I’ve only glanced a bit at Tankspot but after yesterday, I now have a direction to go with some of the questions I have.

Yesterday I tanked Steamvaults and Arcatraz. In SV, we had a frost mage Cyfer, the prot warrior Lag in his DPS gear (our raiding MT), Sabbatine in her priestly holy freak suit, and Fio on his resto shammy Gaia. Yea, I know, two healers, but we three freshly minted 70s needed our frags and this was probably the best way to test everything out. Though we did start SV with Doom’s huntard but he had to split after the first boss.

Now, I’ve been tanking on Sasha, my ferlol druid since she hit 70… and holy mother of Gawd is warrior prot tanking SO DIFFERENT! I HAAAAAAAAATE multiple targets. I didn’t seem to get enough rage a lot of the times, I’m not sure what my cycle of attacks should be. I know that Shield Bash to the face = lots of aggro, and is dependent on your block rating. I know Devistate is like my LAcerate and can be spammed for threat, but how much? Lacerate functions like a DoT, but Devistate just seems to reapply the Sunder Armor effect, so when I’m maxed at 5, does it still generate enough threat? Also, trying to fit in a Demo Shout seems almost impossible, I didn’t have enough rage. I was pretty rage starved. I also noticed that I wasn’t taking huge amounts of damage. Gaia and Sabbatine complained of boredom : / Sooo, I’m going to guess that maybe I’m overmitigating somehow… but I need rage, and I need to figure out a rotation that produces a decent amount of threat.

Looking at Omen, I was around 400 TPS… I don’t know if that is good enough. WHen we did Arcatraz, Cyfer switched out for Ferlol Arys, and I switched some of my abilities around on my bars to make them more like what Sasha’s bar looks like. Not exactly the same, because warrior’s have many more buttons it seems. Revenge is a pretty awesome attack, and the fact that I’ve spec’d it to cost 2 rage makes me happy, but even in Arc, I was having rage problems again.

My usual rotation on the bear:

Faerie Fire to pull
Mangle
Laceratex2
Demo Roar
Mangle when the CD is up
Spam Lacerate and Maul if I have excess rage

For Squeake, I had enough rage to start off with a Devastate or two, but trying to build up enough rage for that Shield Slam was tough, though Revenging was easy. I think I just need more practice, and some gear advice.

Things I know I need to get before I try out for Kara:

BETTER TANKING TRINKETS ZOMG XD

The Charm is awesome, and so is that Force of Will, but the Charm is kinda like a baby Pocketwatch, and has no equip ability, while the Force of Will is a lvl 55 blue from BRD. There’s a quest line in Netherstorm, the Dimensius the All-Devouring that has the Dabiri’s Enigma which looks like an attainable trinket. Probably replace the Charm. After that, it’s Shadow Labs for my phallic symbol (or you might call it the Adamantine Figurine.)  Then there’s the Cipher of Damnation quest that Sab and I have already started, we’re on the Tuber’s part (kill me now plzkthx) which will net Sab that awesome Staff of the Redeemer and my new tanking weapon, Grom’tor’s Charge.  Though I think I see axe skill leveling in my future T.T

So, other than some upgrades and a firm and complete spanking in a heroic ( I need one, srsly) I think so far so good.  Now it’s time to go trolling the Tankspot forums… though I must admit, I’m horrible at searching for stuffs…

Wishful Thinking

On Commitment & Responsibility

This is going to be somewhat brief and to the point, and I’m not going to get into specifics, because I don’t want to blast drama across the internet. However, AC as a guild has run across this situation a couple times now, and I’d like to make sure people think about things like this before they jump in.

When you are accepted as a member of a guild, and you are given the go ahead that you can raid with them if you want to, please, please think very carefully before you say “yes.”

A lot of people come into a situation thinking about all the fun and cool things that can happen joining a new guild. But then after only one or two raids of participation, something else catches their attention - a new MMO, a new alt, whatever. And then said person misses a raid or two. Then the delay game begins.

“Well, you know, I have to do X, but I should be able to raid again in a couple weeks.”

“I’m just burnt out on it right now, give me a little bit.”

“X real-life commitment is tougher than I thought, but I should be able to work it out.”

Here is the problem. Raiding guilds, especially casual ones like AC, have to maintain something of a delicate balance. A hardcore guild can recruit 30 people or so and say “we require 90% attendance.” But since we have no attendance requirements, we have to maintain enough of a raider base so that when some people don’t show up, raid can still happen. Conversely, we can’t recruit TOO many more people than a full raid, otherwise people don’t get to raid enough because they’re being switched out all the time, and get fed up and leave. It’s a balancing game, taking into account many people’s RL schedules and trying to fit them into a puzzle.

So when a casual guild accepts you, it means they are depending on you to live up to your commitment. Even more so if they have shuffled around the raiding roster or group roles in order to accommodate you. And if you hang around, not raiding, but still saying “just a little more time and I should be back on the bandwagon,” you create a problem. The guild can’t necessarily recruit to replace you, because you’re saying you will be back, and when you do people’s raiding opportunities have to get split up that much more. At the same time, when you’re not showing up, they’re stretching more and more to cover your slot, trying to keep raid momentum going while shorthanded. The problem only multiplies if two or more people start doing the same thing.

So, from a guild leader, please, please look at things from the guild’s point of view for a moment, before you decide to take the plunge. At least personally, if someone made a full effort for at least a couple/few months, and then something came up, I can understand it. But sporadic attendance, or promising you’ll be raiding real soon now, is worse than never showing up at all. It can threaten to stall a guild’s progress, which leads to more people not showing up, which exacerbates the problem, and so on. It’s a real mess to clean up.

Please don’t be That Guy.

(This has been a public service announcement from Stressed Guild Leaders of Azeroth)