Monday, December 1, 2008
Enforced Hiatus
So I haven't played in a week because I am rediculously busy. Starting two new jobs, working eight 10 hour shifts at my old job that I am quitting, and moving apartments. And that doesn't include the holiday. All in all, it would be amazing if I had actually had any time to play at all, even if I had internet set up at the new place yet. But wether or not I have time to play, I can't play at all because my account got hacked again. This time they even took the time to transfer my characters to different servers. Right now all I want to do is rape some face in the BG's, or even get to the new PvP zone in Northrend, but I can't because I don't have an account anymore. If I ever find the dirty little fucksticks who do this shit.....
Friday, November 21, 2008
Deathknight Basics
I'd post a bunch of great things about Northrend, but I haven't gone yet, so instead I'll do a little on the newest class, Deathknights. At this point almost everyone has one, and they are all playing at once. You would think that with such great proliferation of a class people would have some idea what they are doing with it, not to mention the fact that you have to have already gotten a character to level 55 to even make one. I guess I could give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they haven't played a melee class, a tank, or know how to read the tooltips and think for themselves, but where's the fun in that. Either way, let me lay a few simple things out for you.
The Deathknight is an extremely powerful class when it starts out, but won't be anything particularly special at 80, especially since there will likely be way more DK's than anything else and a large portion of them will suck. It's almost the same as the problem with hunters, only worse. Hunters are easy to level, but DK's are already leveled. Either way, the class itself is meant to be a tank, or a melee DPS class. To switch between them all you have to do is change Presences. You'll notice that I said Presence NOT spec. Do not be fooled into thinking that each spec is designed for one thing in particular. Nor should you think that just because certain weapon based talents are in one tree means that you have to use that weapon style, or not use it if you want to but aren't specced for it. More on specs later, Presences first.
Your Frost Presence should primarily be used to tank because it dramatically increases both your armor and your threat. That doesn't mean that it can't be used for other things, such as just grinding, or questing. The increase in armor alone is a great boost to survivability, especially if you end up pulling a few mobs at once. Frost Presence will also contribute to the armor rating for the talent in the Blood tree that adds attack power for every 180 armor, which can give you a significant boost. Blood Presence is best for grinding through mobs. With the boost to damage, and the bonus healing it helps not only to speed up the slaughter, but also helps keep you mostly topped off on health so that you don't have to slow down or stop. This is the Presence you are most likely to be using all of the time, unless you run certain specs, or are always tanking. Unholy Presence, with its haste and run speed, can be used in place of Blood, and should in some cases. In instances and raids the bonus run speed will actually help you during certain fights, getting you in and out of the action faster. The haste is always a nice thing, but keep in mind that most procs use a proc per minute system, which means that even though your weapon hits more often you will still get the same number of procs. However, anything that has a listed percent chance to activate on a melee hit WILL go off more often. A lot of people like to think of the Unholy Presence as the PvP one, which is mostly true, but, as always, it depends on what you specced. In PvP the haste and the run speed are a phenomenal help, but if you specced for icy talons, and have the run speed enchants, you really don't need to use Unholy Presence.
Now lets talk about specs a little. In VERY general terms these are what the specs are for. I say this because you can do whatever you want, but this is the way the trees are generally focused. Blood is for soloing and single target combat. The only real AoE damage you can get here is pestilence + blood boil. You will also pick up great survivability through combat based health regen, and even a self (upgradeable to group) heal for 10% to 20%. Frost is generally a tanking spec. It has a few different armor talents, a 20% personal/group/raid haste, and a great AoE talent. Unholy is harder to place into a category. It's more of a utility tree, but it does have some great DPS in it. You will pick up an actual pet, a third disease, a PBAoE, AoE snare, and a few other little things. The pet adds a fair chunk to your dps, and it can pull a mob or two off of you. The third disease is really a huge bonus to your ability damage because most of your skills add damage per each disease you have on the target.
With a class like the Deathknight there is no wrong answer. Pretty much the only thing to really base your spec off of is how you like to play and how you like to level. Keep in mind that as of right now there is a ridiculous number of Deathknights around, and all of them start off in the same place, and then move directly to Hellfire, so you will be fighting for quest mobs and drops. The most efficient spec for leveling is Blood, no matter what anyone will tell you. By efficient I mean that you will have less downtime than the others. However, the other two aren't bad specs, just not optimized for leveling the way Blood is. With Blood you will almost never get below 75-80% health as long as you pay attention, whereas the other two will periodically require you to bandage. But if you would rather pull 2-5 mobs at once and AoE them all into the ground then by all means go Frost or Unholy.
Weapon choices are the other thing that people argue over all the time. DK's get 1 and 2 hand axes and swords, as well as polearms. No maces. The only real choices are looks and whether to go dual wield or 2 handed. Looks is your choice that I refuse to influence, but the style choice is important. A lot of people think that dual wield will do more damage, but this is wrong, mostly. There are two real reasons for this. The first is the same argument that has been going for ages: mitigation and avoidance. Two weapons that hit half as hard will be absorbed by armor much easier than a single hard hitting weapon. As for avoidance it's not the dodge that's important, it's the mobs parry rating. When a mob or boss parries it resets the swing timer. You can avoid the problem with parry by staying behind something, but there isn't much you can do about the armor. The second, and larger difference is that a large number of the DK abilities are based on weapon damage. For dual wield this will be your main hand, but no matter what a two hander will have a much higher damage to work with. There are a couple ways to make dual wielding have a higher damage output, but the best is actually a tri-spec, with a few more points into Frost than Blood or Unholy. Make sure that you get the dual wield talent in Frost, as well as Howling Blast, and then Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis from Unholy. In Blood you'll want to get Dark Conviction, but that's about it. Maybe Death Rune Mastery. I'll draw up and post some sample specs for you all over the next few days.
Hopefully this helps people get a little better general idea of what to do with their Deathknight when they start leveling them. As mine progresses farther I will continue to post about what I learn. Also look for things similar to this for Druids, Shamen, and Hunters in the future, as well as some postings on what to expect in Northrend.
The Deathknight is an extremely powerful class when it starts out, but won't be anything particularly special at 80, especially since there will likely be way more DK's than anything else and a large portion of them will suck. It's almost the same as the problem with hunters, only worse. Hunters are easy to level, but DK's are already leveled. Either way, the class itself is meant to be a tank, or a melee DPS class. To switch between them all you have to do is change Presences. You'll notice that I said Presence NOT spec. Do not be fooled into thinking that each spec is designed for one thing in particular. Nor should you think that just because certain weapon based talents are in one tree means that you have to use that weapon style, or not use it if you want to but aren't specced for it. More on specs later, Presences first.
Your Frost Presence should primarily be used to tank because it dramatically increases both your armor and your threat. That doesn't mean that it can't be used for other things, such as just grinding, or questing. The increase in armor alone is a great boost to survivability, especially if you end up pulling a few mobs at once. Frost Presence will also contribute to the armor rating for the talent in the Blood tree that adds attack power for every 180 armor, which can give you a significant boost. Blood Presence is best for grinding through mobs. With the boost to damage, and the bonus healing it helps not only to speed up the slaughter, but also helps keep you mostly topped off on health so that you don't have to slow down or stop. This is the Presence you are most likely to be using all of the time, unless you run certain specs, or are always tanking. Unholy Presence, with its haste and run speed, can be used in place of Blood, and should in some cases. In instances and raids the bonus run speed will actually help you during certain fights, getting you in and out of the action faster. The haste is always a nice thing, but keep in mind that most procs use a proc per minute system, which means that even though your weapon hits more often you will still get the same number of procs. However, anything that has a listed percent chance to activate on a melee hit WILL go off more often. A lot of people like to think of the Unholy Presence as the PvP one, which is mostly true, but, as always, it depends on what you specced. In PvP the haste and the run speed are a phenomenal help, but if you specced for icy talons, and have the run speed enchants, you really don't need to use Unholy Presence.
Now lets talk about specs a little. In VERY general terms these are what the specs are for. I say this because you can do whatever you want, but this is the way the trees are generally focused. Blood is for soloing and single target combat. The only real AoE damage you can get here is pestilence + blood boil. You will also pick up great survivability through combat based health regen, and even a self (upgradeable to group) heal for 10% to 20%. Frost is generally a tanking spec. It has a few different armor talents, a 20% personal/group/raid haste, and a great AoE talent. Unholy is harder to place into a category. It's more of a utility tree, but it does have some great DPS in it. You will pick up an actual pet, a third disease, a PBAoE, AoE snare, and a few other little things. The pet adds a fair chunk to your dps, and it can pull a mob or two off of you. The third disease is really a huge bonus to your ability damage because most of your skills add damage per each disease you have on the target.
With a class like the Deathknight there is no wrong answer. Pretty much the only thing to really base your spec off of is how you like to play and how you like to level. Keep in mind that as of right now there is a ridiculous number of Deathknights around, and all of them start off in the same place, and then move directly to Hellfire, so you will be fighting for quest mobs and drops. The most efficient spec for leveling is Blood, no matter what anyone will tell you. By efficient I mean that you will have less downtime than the others. However, the other two aren't bad specs, just not optimized for leveling the way Blood is. With Blood you will almost never get below 75-80% health as long as you pay attention, whereas the other two will periodically require you to bandage. But if you would rather pull 2-5 mobs at once and AoE them all into the ground then by all means go Frost or Unholy.
Weapon choices are the other thing that people argue over all the time. DK's get 1 and 2 hand axes and swords, as well as polearms. No maces. The only real choices are looks and whether to go dual wield or 2 handed. Looks is your choice that I refuse to influence, but the style choice is important. A lot of people think that dual wield will do more damage, but this is wrong, mostly. There are two real reasons for this. The first is the same argument that has been going for ages: mitigation and avoidance. Two weapons that hit half as hard will be absorbed by armor much easier than a single hard hitting weapon. As for avoidance it's not the dodge that's important, it's the mobs parry rating. When a mob or boss parries it resets the swing timer. You can avoid the problem with parry by staying behind something, but there isn't much you can do about the armor. The second, and larger difference is that a large number of the DK abilities are based on weapon damage. For dual wield this will be your main hand, but no matter what a two hander will have a much higher damage to work with. There are a couple ways to make dual wielding have a higher damage output, but the best is actually a tri-spec, with a few more points into Frost than Blood or Unholy. Make sure that you get the dual wield talent in Frost, as well as Howling Blast, and then Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis from Unholy. In Blood you'll want to get Dark Conviction, but that's about it. Maybe Death Rune Mastery. I'll draw up and post some sample specs for you all over the next few days.
Hopefully this helps people get a little better general idea of what to do with their Deathknight when they start leveling them. As mine progresses farther I will continue to post about what I learn. Also look for things similar to this for Druids, Shamen, and Hunters in the future, as well as some postings on what to expect in Northrend.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
For The Whores!
Welcome to my own little piece of... well something. It's not that it's a bad idea exactly, it's just that it's not a great idea. I'm notoriously terrible about blogging, but whenever I do get around to it, I seem to generate a high amount of amusement. Either way, the current blog I have going is about my life, and this one is about WoW. This is pretty much the only seperation that the two really have because I usually play just like I live: tired, drunk, high, and pissed. On the other hand, I seem to be much better at WoW, go figure. Anyways, moving on.
I've been playing since launch, so I generally have a pretty decent idea about how to play the game, and all of the classes. I'm one of those people who would be called a casual WoW player, if not for the fact that I play all the time. By that I mean that I'm not a raider, a farmer, or a hardcore PvPer, although the last of those is the closest it really gets. I've never managed to stay in a guild for any really long length of time because I can't handle the childishness of it. If I wanted to deal with kids all the time I'd start a day care, or knock up some whore. Either way, guilds usually piss me off pretty quick. The only person I know who hates irritating guilds more than me is my best friend who also plays, and, coincidentally, is an even bigger asshole. The two of us tend to stick together, hence the lack of a strong guild backing us. No matter what, the only faction I play is Horde; too many kiddies, and primadonnas play Alliance, although Horde has it's share. Also, all the Alliance races look retarded. As for tradeskills, the only one I ever manage to get maxed easily seems to be skinning. Anything else takes too much work farming, which I hate to do, so I don't.
At one point or another I've played every class. I even played a priest, albeit not for very long. Right now I'm back on Tichondrius, which is where I started back in the beginning, but took a hiatous from when the Q got too annoying, and then came back when PvP on Akama became completely useless around 2.4 or so. Right now I have a 70 BM Blood Elf Hunter, a 70 Enhance Tauren Shaman, a 66 Feral Tauren Druid, and a 66 Frost Tauren Deathknight. I also have a smattering of other toons ranging from 56 down to 8, but they don't really matter. Sadly, I've either deleted or sold at least another 3 max level (at the time) characters. I'm not even sure which of my four that I still play is even my main anymore. Lately, obviously, I've been playing the DK the most, but that's because I am trying to wait out the mass exodus to Northrend for a little bit. I plan on having the Druid and the DK both to 68-70 before I move all four of them to Northrend. If you noticed, most of my main four are Taurens, which is funny because I hate them. The Druid being Tauren is self-explanatory, but the Shaman and the DK are a little different. When I made the Shaman I didn't have a Tauren, so I figured what the hell and made one. As for the DK, Taurens look hugely fucking awesome in plate.
It's actually amazing that I still play this game. My account has been hacked, and not reimbursed by Blizzard; I've been married and subsequently divorced; I've been banned, suspended, and had an account outright shitcanned by Blizzard; but for some reason I keep coming back. I recently compared WoW to an ex-girlfriend: Once you quit you really shouldn't go back, but because it's easy to get enjoyment out of it with a minimum of work it seems like a good idea for awhile, until you get reminded why you quit in the first place. It's all a matter of which is greater, hatred or pleasure. By the way, did you kow you could get suspended for repeatedly reporting someone for being stupid? Or petitioning to have someone killed, both in game and in real life? Even asking a GM if they were being bitchy and not helping because they were pregnant, on the rag, or just too ugly to get laid will get you suspended. Oh, and sending someone private tells asking why he sucked so much and how he needs to kill himself in real life for being such a fag that he made a male Belf, and then following him around tagging his mobs and saying things to him and emoting like a drunken, retarded monkey (I was really drunk this time) named Slutbag after he ignores you will get you banned for a week or two. Yelling at customer support on the phone after they claimed you did this, but you were too drunk to remember until your friend assured you that you had not only done this, but several other things just as bad to several other people, all while yelling about the entire experience in vent to your friend will actually get your account deleted. FYI, it was totally worth it. One of my many suspensions actually almost inconvienieced me. I had just woken up and tried to sign in, only to learn that I had been suspended. I checked my email to see the length of time I was suspended this time, went outside to have a cigarette, came back in and logged on. My suspension ended 6 minutes after I first tried to log on. Most of the others I never even noticed until I checked my email.
No matter what I actually manage to post here for you people, know that I will never, ever give a crap what you think about me. However, I do hope at least a couple of people find it either amusing or helpful.
I've been playing since launch, so I generally have a pretty decent idea about how to play the game, and all of the classes. I'm one of those people who would be called a casual WoW player, if not for the fact that I play all the time. By that I mean that I'm not a raider, a farmer, or a hardcore PvPer, although the last of those is the closest it really gets. I've never managed to stay in a guild for any really long length of time because I can't handle the childishness of it. If I wanted to deal with kids all the time I'd start a day care, or knock up some whore. Either way, guilds usually piss me off pretty quick. The only person I know who hates irritating guilds more than me is my best friend who also plays, and, coincidentally, is an even bigger asshole. The two of us tend to stick together, hence the lack of a strong guild backing us. No matter what, the only faction I play is Horde; too many kiddies, and primadonnas play Alliance, although Horde has it's share. Also, all the Alliance races look retarded. As for tradeskills, the only one I ever manage to get maxed easily seems to be skinning. Anything else takes too much work farming, which I hate to do, so I don't.
At one point or another I've played every class. I even played a priest, albeit not for very long. Right now I'm back on Tichondrius, which is where I started back in the beginning, but took a hiatous from when the Q got too annoying, and then came back when PvP on Akama became completely useless around 2.4 or so. Right now I have a 70 BM Blood Elf Hunter, a 70 Enhance Tauren Shaman, a 66 Feral Tauren Druid, and a 66 Frost Tauren Deathknight. I also have a smattering of other toons ranging from 56 down to 8, but they don't really matter. Sadly, I've either deleted or sold at least another 3 max level (at the time) characters. I'm not even sure which of my four that I still play is even my main anymore. Lately, obviously, I've been playing the DK the most, but that's because I am trying to wait out the mass exodus to Northrend for a little bit. I plan on having the Druid and the DK both to 68-70 before I move all four of them to Northrend. If you noticed, most of my main four are Taurens, which is funny because I hate them. The Druid being Tauren is self-explanatory, but the Shaman and the DK are a little different. When I made the Shaman I didn't have a Tauren, so I figured what the hell and made one. As for the DK, Taurens look hugely fucking awesome in plate.
It's actually amazing that I still play this game. My account has been hacked, and not reimbursed by Blizzard; I've been married and subsequently divorced; I've been banned, suspended, and had an account outright shitcanned by Blizzard; but for some reason I keep coming back. I recently compared WoW to an ex-girlfriend: Once you quit you really shouldn't go back, but because it's easy to get enjoyment out of it with a minimum of work it seems like a good idea for awhile, until you get reminded why you quit in the first place. It's all a matter of which is greater, hatred or pleasure. By the way, did you kow you could get suspended for repeatedly reporting someone for being stupid? Or petitioning to have someone killed, both in game and in real life? Even asking a GM if they were being bitchy and not helping because they were pregnant, on the rag, or just too ugly to get laid will get you suspended. Oh, and sending someone private tells asking why he sucked so much and how he needs to kill himself in real life for being such a fag that he made a male Belf, and then following him around tagging his mobs and saying things to him and emoting like a drunken, retarded monkey (I was really drunk this time) named Slutbag after he ignores you will get you banned for a week or two. Yelling at customer support on the phone after they claimed you did this, but you were too drunk to remember until your friend assured you that you had not only done this, but several other things just as bad to several other people, all while yelling about the entire experience in vent to your friend will actually get your account deleted. FYI, it was totally worth it. One of my many suspensions actually almost inconvienieced me. I had just woken up and tried to sign in, only to learn that I had been suspended. I checked my email to see the length of time I was suspended this time, went outside to have a cigarette, came back in and logged on. My suspension ended 6 minutes after I first tried to log on. Most of the others I never even noticed until I checked my email.
No matter what I actually manage to post here for you people, know that I will never, ever give a crap what you think about me. However, I do hope at least a couple of people find it either amusing or helpful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)