What's the Difference Between Us?

We can start at the penis. Or we can scream, "I Just Don't Give a Fuck," and see who means it.
But enough Eminem.

Different people lead different lives. For instance, for you sidewalk can very well only mean that which you step on when you go outside. For me it's a constant adventure of pothole jumping, slipery slope surfing and a stiletto inhibitor. (The representetive photo includes a man lugging a pink thing that made me chuckle much at the time.) When the ground is composed of easily detachable rocks like so, you live your life a certain way. You learn to navigate it from an early age, OCD suffererers skip to avoid the black bits, you learn the rocks are much too hard to kick with soft shoes, you kick them out of the road if you're nice. People that live in places where sidewalk is just slabs of concrete put together never have to deal with such exciting dillemas.

The difference between me and the rest of most of the bloggers who've posted about the new city is that most of them are part of a large, organized guild. I'm a pugger. So it was with much dread that I ventured into the new city, self-conscious but ready to try my best. "Just follow the zerg" said Gonk, the supatank. And follow the zerg I most certainly did. As luck would have it, and much to my delight, we ran into another pug on order side. As pugs go ours must've been better as we breezed through all the stages without me dying even once.

I got a Warlord Carcass-Guard on the second stage and a purple bag on the third. Had a crappy knife in it so I just took the crests. I flapped my papier mache wings in excitement at the sight of a cowering Karl among our super-sized puggers.

So yes, I too aprove of this new city. I found myself asking "Can we go again?" right after it was over. It totally made up for the uselesness I had endured trying to defend Caledor earlier.

Waiting Between Worlds

Har-dee-har-har.

While the patcher patches, which should be another hour, give or take, I thought I'd share something.

Of course, now that I'm here I completely forgot what I was going to share so, here I sit with a defunct lighter and candy wrappers, typing about nothing, really, while the patcher seems stuck at 10%.

I'm glad my last post was so inspirational for so many, I honestly didn't have much to say (kinda like now but I did! I swear!) so I just posted about one of my core beliefs about this game: crying about it is useless, you might as well try and do something smart.

Honestly, I don't get people that go on /ad to say "This game sucks" day in, day out, the same people. And these aren't trialers either. So wtf are they still doing in the game, paying for it, or even logging in? There's so much more to do in the world. Take it from me, the world is wider than your widescreen and you won't be missed.

Why, just yesterday I sat at our friends' house drinking copious amounts of chick drinks, rum and absynth, playing Pictionary and watching a very clothed Shakira not strutting her stuff much on the stage of Rock In Rio while being brutally mauled by their territorial cat. Life is fun like that. So if WAR isn't your cup of tea, go out drinking and drive or go play Puzzle Pirates or something just don't bother us with your whining because the rest of us are trying to have some fun here.

I'm all for constructive criticism though, and I'm guessing someone somewhere is bound to have a brilliant idea that the devs never did and we should thus all pitch in with our 2 cents. I don't, however, so I'm keeping my mouth shut (except, of course, make contribution not random and do something about PvE drops like a token system cuz I'm tired of running LV). But simply saying "nerf/don't nerf BWs" or "RvR is boring" doesn't cut it. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering soup and saying "this soup is bad". What're you going to do about it? Order something else? What would you rather have then? You don't know? Then would you kindly leave the premises and make room for people who do?

I like the soup. It's tasty. It'd be even tastier if it wasn't still at 14%.

If, however, you decide to suck it up and play a while, make the best of your money, time and patience and try your bestest. No one can blame you if you try your bestest. In fact, you're likely to be commended for doing so. It shows, believe you me. Sometimes, when I'm tired or just lazy I try a little less harder and it shows. Other times I get in the zone and I give it my all and the difference is there. Not the bestest healing ever but it surely made a difference. Oh yeah, btw, you know that addon that makes you thank the healer for when you get rezzed? Only the most annoying thing ever, especially when I get a "Thanks for resing me, dude!" A misogynistic addon does not make me feel appreciated. Taking your time to actually write a thank you for my efforts does.

Yay, 44% after a wall of text of near senseless gibberish. Ok, I'll stop bothering you now.

Make a Difference

Hecticness has struck and I am still amidst a tidal wave of tasks (including watching Supernatural season 5. That show is awesome). So I can be forgiven for taking a week off WAR, just to clear me head and all.

Today I went back. As luck would have it (or wouldn't) today was the day of the supposed launch of 1.3.5. But since things didn't go very well across the big blue wet thing, patchness was delayed.

Still, I went cruising around t4 SCs with mah main healer to grab me some emblems while I wait for the new city.

I read somewhere that WAR had a big fault as in it didn't make the individual feel like he was crucial or vital to the unfolding of events in a battle. I beg to differ. Especially in scenarios, which is where I've spent most of my time lately. Even if one cannot, for various reasons, contribute much to the overall healing or damage dealt, there's always other ways of making yourself worthy of the bandwidth you're taking up. If your side is getting farmed, go around and cap some flags. If you, as a tank, can't get your marks under 50% hp before they're healed back up again, go back and punt the healers' threats away.

Today I felt like I mattered. Faced with yet another Nordenwatch spawn point farm I went around and joined 2 other players in capping Lighthouse and Fortress. When we get to Barracks I start reading complaints about how people "haven't had a single heal since the beggining of teh SC QQ". Since we were done capping anyways, I bravely rode my steed headfirst into the red multitude and kicked them with my new morale 4 goodness and started healing away. Sure enough, we drove them back and ended up winning it. It's not like I was the only healer because I wasn't, and I wasn't near the top of the healing chart. But my efforts made a difference. We capped the flags for time enough to swing the points in our favor and eventually kept enough people up for us to drive them back.

Same with Dex, later on. Although I agree that damage alone is not the way to go and we should all strive for a good dmg/DB ratio, that rarely happens with Dex. Mostly because I entertain myself interrupting their backline and keeping the healers busy on themselves so their frontline withers away. Yes, healers are extremely difficult for just one player to finish off, I know that from personal experience. I also know how important it is to be concerned about other health bars apart from my own. So I usually top the damage table and have very few deathblows. But all that damage mattered for something. It might have been healed away but at least those heals, that cast time, that AP was spent on my effort, allowing other people's efforts to get through and kill and whatnot.

Maybe I'm just an optimist and revert to over-analyzing just to feel better about myself. But I do. I feel good about myself. About my noob dmg and all.

"What does the gun do?"

"It shoots bullets really fast."

- Detective Joe Miller

And if you got that reference, kudos to you for being awesome.

I've been super busy lately: between spring cleaning, trying to find a new place so I don't have to spring clean this one, daydreaming about it in the shower and finding vile things behind furniture, I've had very little time to play WAR even, much less post about it.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised with the news of the BW/Sorc nerf.

Cry me a river. Or don't, as most of you are sane people that realize this is a bold yet much needed first step in the right direction. Being instantly obliterated by 2~3 tiki torches surrounded by fast moving immovable bricks is not okay. I guess our favorite bombers really showed them what's what. (Btw, I found a pic of Arsanist grinning at an ice cream. Now I won't feel so bad when he kills me. Now I need a goofy pick of Steveo to make me feel better).

Maybe we'll even get lucky and some people stop playing BW altogether, bringing some variety into our lives. True BW lovers won't quit on them and kids over-compensating can give tanking a go because of their big swords.

WOO! Thanks to Jesus and the Pope!

No, this post has absolutely nothing to do with WAR.

Or very little at least.

So my team's da champ now, after a long dry spell. But Jesus came through for us, in the end, and, with a little help from the Pope (he's in town for a quick visit. People get the day off if they want to go see the Pope. So everyone's totally religious right now. Big surprise, huh), we finally walked away with the tittle. Man, I wish I was more into football (or soccer for all you Californians and Texans and... Michiganesians?), I would've been so happy. I remember the times when I still was, back in the day, back before I realised that my team lost every game I decided to watch. So I stopped watching and started gaming instead.

I'm not terrified of crowds but seeing this

turn into this

can frighten pretty much everyone. The subway workers pretty much went home and left everyone to do whatever they wished with their spray cans and beer cups and random hooliganism. It was like everyone had a free pass to do whatever because we finally won the big one. I mean it.

I wish people got that excited about king kills. If king kills were this exciting everyone would be doing it: banding together to push to the city, getting organised and actually listening so we could get to the big mofo and spank it down to dust to then be rewarded with a night of all-out drinking, random yelling and car-honking. I'd take that over any Sovereign piece. But maybe not two.

That'd be awesome.

Epikk's Choppa Guide to Lost Vale: Left Wing

Ok, so, the missus has been nagging me to write some Choppa guides to go with her Zealot guides to the several T4 dungeons and whatnot.

First of all, lemme tell you about my spec, so you can laugh at it a little bit :)

I'm a Savage Choppa at heart. To be honest i can't really live without Can't Stop Da Chop and Furious Choppin', and i allways have my thrusty Wot Rules? equipped.

As for a second tree, i usually go with Da' Wrecka when we're out dungeoning because even though i can't adapt to it for PVP, i do enjoy it for PVE because the AOE really helps when too many trash mobs start to hump my healer.

Now, the juicy parts.

WOT EPIKK DOS AS A CHOPPIN' CHOPPA WHEN WE'S GO DUNJUNS!!!!

My usual role is the main DPS guy (except on the bosses that are

easier to burn with ranged crap).

I don't really know if you other MDPSes out there use Don't Hate Da Choppa (or equivalent) for the reduced aggro when you're out clubbing or not, but i rarely do

Mainly because i've been a DPS for most of my life and as such i know how to controll my aggro pretty well, but also because i can use that extra tactic slot for something more useful, and Nirvaesh will yell at me if i lower my aggro too much cuz he's usually "chaneling" my aggro to himself (so, the more the merrier).

And i also have Hurtin' Time on at all times, as any respectable Choppa should.

As for Morale abilities, there's no M1 that's worth it, and M3 and M4 are just too far away considering that i always go for Tantrum when it becomes available, because the added damage is nice, and the fact that it doesn't fade when i go out of combat is a nice bonus.

i think that's it for general notes.

I'll follow Sara's lead on this one and i'll organize the rest of the post by Boss sections, so, here it goes...

Lake Lizard

Big Angry Cloud Boss

MORE

Slaanesh Cutie (I like to call it the Nipple Monster)

OK, this one is actually different.

I ALSO spam it, but i run arround lashing out some Lottsa Choppin because of the little adds that the Nipple Monster spawns (just so that they don't go pester the healers and RDPS)

This boss also makes me think of the movie Total Recall for some odd reason...

Dralel, the ICritYouToDeath Spider

Complete different approach here.

I don't even toutch the boss. that's a job for the tanks and maybe the other DPS if he feels like it. My sole purpose in life with this boss is to kill the little spiders that come from all over the place to try and reach the big-scary-spider-thing (i am an arachnophobe btw. the boss actually creeps me out a little bit) to raise it's crit.

Lottsa Choppin comes as a big help in this one as i can just run arround lashing at the little critters before they reach Dralel, and Charge! helps a lot when the thing knocks me back all the way to Burkina Faso and i have to run back ASAP to keep killing the adds.

On a side note, i love doing this boss with a Chosen, because i can let pass an ocasional spider and not worry about it because the Chosen's DPS aura will take care of it when the little one gets to his momma.

To be honest, the best part of this boss is after it's dead and we head back. I always just stand there and look at Sara trying to get out of the cave because she ALWAYS tries to exit through one of the fake holes on the wall that have big pillars of light coming out of them. Every time we kill Dralel she starts bitching about the Darkpromise Footwraps that never drop, and then she starts running against a wall, like a moth attracted to a lightbulb haha. there's also the now-so-classic "FUCK!" when she finally realizes that she's doing it again :P

All in all it seems that i spam a lot... well... i do. But whenever i say "spam" i don't mean just hit "4" untill the boss drops. My usual "spam cycle" for PVE mainly consists of a mix of Can't Stop Da Chop (my regular cookie cutter), Furious Choppin(for some added heals) and Go For Da Soft Spot(whenever i'm behind a boss), and i ocasionaly squeeze some other stuff in there just to be colourfull.

Anyway, that's that people.

Cheers.

Bring forth thy DoTs

I get a lot of visits from Washington and California. And I had someone from Brighton here! Aussum! Never been, but its in some of my Rankin readings. Lots from Denmark too. Makes me miss the broodparents. (You know who you are!)

So, Darkdeadly invited me to a ToVL run he was having. They had apparently been wiping on the 5th boss and needed an extra healer to help out. Lil' old me had only done the first 2 ToVL bosses so far but I offered to help out to the best of my ability. After they insisted I should have Superior Wards for it I broke down one of my 2 Warlord Crests to buy an Invader helmet and get to 4/5 Sup wards. All the good it did me, I don't think I ever got hit except on purpose.

Anyways, by the end of the night we were stumping on the final boss. First we were doing well but not quick enough and he was enraging, then with only one tank, we started wiping and after much blaming on my heals (no, I wasn't actually healing for 300, my HoTs were, actual heals were around 3k but who the fuck is coutning anyway) we had Semor come and help out and, lo and be utterly amazed, we still failed.

I'm not the best healer, I've said that countless times and I am also severely miss geared but, personally, I blame the tank. But I don't give a shit, I got mah second Glyph! \0/ Nau I haz 2.

Seeing as I had to respec to single target and buy the AP ritual (apparently, this together with the stagger is quite useful in ToVL. I wouldn't know cuz I've been there just twice and if you can do it without a zelly, you can do it without those 2 skills), I got poor again. Something always comes up to slice my finances down the middle.

So I hoped on Dex to try and farm a few city dungeons for curios. I had shelved Dex for a while because I had full Invader in the bank. Yes, I shelved him because of the good gear I had for it. It's just that I was going to take so long to get there I lost my motivation. It's dealing fair enough damage over time but still lacking in stopping power, aka, not enough deathblows. I'm thinking of trying to get some Darkpromise for it while I get to Invader but, by God, I'm scared of going LV with him and watching Zealot drops while not on the donkey. I just know they will.

As of yesterday, Dextrose is rr47 so it's not that far from his first Invader pieces anyway. As I am kinda hoping for the patch to hit and boost my Leaping Alteration and favourite ritual (i like it because its cast time is lower, you hate it because it doesn't give AP) I might start playing Dex more often now. That and its less stressful. I don't have to worry about what EVERY destro is doing around me all the time.

I even defended IC after I promised mysef I wouldn't bother until the patch came. We had an unusual combination of a Rift, Changing (me) and Havoc Magi so, even while being farmed, I had a good time. Eventually Order came 1VP short of locking and we all /loled at them in the end. Good times.

After that, we took the opportunity to lock some zones so I roamed around in a good PUG for a while, which is how I finally dinged. Looking back, I can sure tell the difference between being Annihilator geared (I was in it for the longest time) and my new Sent/Conq mix, especially on keep mobs. Before, they took quite a while to die, now... they don't. Looking forward to my Invader now.

Nothing too interesting today, expect the rest of the LV guide when my lockout ends and I find a good group to breeze through it. Any volunteers?