Something in My Head Died

It did.

I woke up one Monday (or maybe it was Sunday. Well, it was definitely on a day that ended in "y") and the right side of my face was numb. I gave it a day, thought I might have slep ton one side for too long. Next day it was the same and the same it was on the third day.

So I called my mother, she's a nurse, and she said it could be a wisdom tooth. So I made an appointment at the dentists. "You can come in on the 7th of July". "Eff that," I thought, "I ain't having my face numb for a month. I'll scratch my nose off till then." Mike got me an appointment for his dentist the next day.

I go in and he tells me it's not my wisdom teeth. They're actually looking pretty good and will probably give me no problems in the future.

Then I did something one should never do: I Googled my symptoms. I started panicking at the mention of MS, aneurisms and all sorts of degenerative diseases. So I picked up my family and off to the hospital we went.

As general practitioners couldn't see what was wrong with me, they sent me to the neurology department for which I had to get in one of those spanky hospital gowns and ride around in a gurney (or trolley if that's your fancy) while old people were puking all over the place. I was the spunkiest patient in the E.R., I was.

I got to do a CAT scan which I thoroughly enjoyed. After some 4 hours I got the "we have no clue what's wrong with you but you shouldn't be too concerned. Stuff happens. Especially to people who work around freezers". But I don't work at all...

As you can probably realise, the idea that you can just wake up one day without feeling a part of your body because "shit happens" didn't sit well with me. Neither did the news that it'll probably stay like this for at least a month.

It is the most annoying thing I've ever experienced. It's like everyday, you're coming home from the dentist after a root canal or permanently having a layer of adhesive over half your nose and upper lip. My right upper teeth are numb too so they always feel cold.

I still have some more hospital visits scheduled so WAR is thoroughly on the back burner for now.

Sorry 'bout that peeps.

Portugal, The Man

That's actually the name of a band from Alaska. I never heard it though.

Here's a caption if you're having doubts of where its at. (Yes, Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal too even though they wish they weren't. Conversely, Galicia wishes they were.)

So, June 10th, Portugal Day. If Italy is the boot of Europe then Portugal is its face. And the nose would be its capital.

Its funny how Portugal has become so hip these days. Most Europeans have heard of Mourinho for obvious reasons (although he's not the specimen we're the most proud of but, then again, we all have a little Mourinho inside of us.... eww, that came out wrong). Overseas we have Nelly Furtado (which means "stolen" BTW) pretending to have a real passion for this country which I find completely insincere and wish she would just stfu but whatever. Also, these days, Portugal has been showing up all over the place. You can find a "Portugal Yell" in one of buffalax's hits, mentions to it on various sitcoms (Arrested Development, New Adventures of Old Christine, etc) mostly as this obscure country that they've heard about but aren't really sure where its at and what it does, and it continues to be, as it has always been, a favorite holiday destination for the middle class of colder regions like the UK, Germany and the phallus of Europe (Scandinavia).

All in all, I find it a great country to be in. Weather is always nice, we're not bankrupt (yet) and... did I mention the weather is always nice? The food is tasty, the booze is intoxicating, the people are short and friendly, even more so these past few years (except the "short" part, we're getting taller) and the sidewalk is always awesome, albeit a bit dangerous. There is history here. My favorite part of it would be it's origins. Over a thousand years ago this dude stood up and said "fuck this, I don't even like the spanish anyway", rebelled against his mother and proceeded to create a country of his own. Some time later some other dude said "this feels a little cramped here, right? Let's check out the rest of the world." And so they did. Of course, like all the big empires it eventually fell through but who gives a crap. T'was an awesome initiative. I also like the story of Martim Moniz. The most legendary tank wall ever.

I have come to the realisation that I am as dedicated to Destruction as I am to being portuguese. I mean, sure I may visit other countries and learn to speak different languages but this is where I belong, where I reside and what I fight for. Although, unlike Destro, Portugal has lost the habit of imposing its beliefs on the rest of the world. Still, I feel warm inside when I think about both. The bigges difference would be, as a Destro, I feel like part of history in the making.

I love my country. In a healthy european way of loving one's country. It's like so small and cosy and friendly and tasty.
And did I mention the weather is awesome?

Happy Portugal Day everybody!

"Best Zealot Norn Semor Warhammer"

Apparently the above is a Google search that led someone here. Either Semor has been feeling like boosting his ego or someone out there has a crush on him.

I like Semor, honestly. I was on vent with him once (my famed ToVL run, when he logged in to help us kill the last boss and we still failed) and his voice sounds very calm. It made me sleep better, I swear. Healing wise I'm gonna say he's good. Not that I ever saw him heal outside of that room, cuz I haven't, but he has the approval of Fionna and Darkdeadly and the like and if he does, he must be good.

Still, if not the best he is surely one of the most famous. He seems to get around a lot. I can't think of many other Zealots doing well that I see all that often. There's Manouche (although that guy/gal aint that good), there's Ultelot but he's frightened of me, Incahealerlolz but haven't seen that one in a while, Zapperinyi (or whatever its typed) that is surely not taking the most out of his Tyrant set... Dunno. Where did they all go?

Maybe the supposed new class mechanic will bring more people back to the class and more new ones to it. I'm not complaining, I always loved it just the way it was. I don't agree that we're the underdog healing class even though we don't have a defined healing tree. I'd still love a set tree just for healing, no doubts about that but I rarely see people outhealing a Zealot. Unless, of course, it's a Tyrant geared DoK. Those things are fierce.

On a related note, I heal-raced a DoK I have nothing but respect for. Semchance Nenhuma is a tuga DoK in Norn (he means to say you have Nochanche Atall) and I bumped into him in a city siege. I kept being rezed and I finally told him how disgruntled I was that he was always one step ahead. Somehow I managed to get in front of him in the third stage. And I got to rr58! \m/

Now I'm going to go surf the interwebs for appliances because I think we found a house we're ready to buy.
Still no job though, but the order of these things doesn't relaly matter much, does it?

Cards

I was looking through my Rewards section in the ToK and I started wondering? What's the deal with this "Cards" section? If they're never going to use it why don't they remove it?

And then I started dreaming about a card game similar to that in FFVIII or FFIX (yes, I'm very Square-oriented these days). That would be awesome. Not only would I totally rule but it'd give me a reason to get re-hooked for real on WAR. God only knows how many hours I spent tracking down those cards and winning those battles on the PS, who knows what it'd do to my life if they implemented something similar in WAR.

But even if it was just like a collector's thing, I wish they would do something with it. I dislike empty tabs, makes the game look unfinished.

Or is it implemented and I just missed it completely?

Super Bock

Thats the name of the beer I'm drinking that prevented me from finding a better title.

Things have calmed down a bit and I got to play a bit more. Been to a lot of city sieges lately. It pleases me that I can do 2 of them in a row. Just today I was in one with Dex and we managed to win the first 2 stages but on the third one Karl chose Kardinal (you might remember him from a previous post) to be a champ and all was for naught. Still, I went back in and managed to get a fine Sov chest for Dex in the end. That was nice.

Loot wise, life's been good. Sov helm and purple knife for Ehone to add to my new vault tab wich I like to call "sweet loot I'll never get to wear cuz I'm so lazy to get my rr up" where my warlord chest, gloves and boots already await. I got to be big in a city siege too. Of course, it was only three of us on Destro side by the third stage so poor Tchar didn't have much choice. And 2 of us were healers so only two of us ended up being big.

I'd completely forgotten about those new talismans they were selling, especially the reduced AP one. I just bought one before I logged out, haven't had a chance to try it yet. What I definitely will not be buying is a Barbie pony. Only because I went to a toy store the other day and there it was, a Barbie horse. And I swear it looked familiar. I got home and I understood why.

The bombing nerf seems to have worked, somewhat. At least I can brag about having won a SC with 4 BWs in it. Flash of Chaos seems to be much improved as well.

All in all a good end to a very bad week.
Now if only I could muster the €375.000 they were asking for that apartment I saw today.

Swallowed up

In life, to be honest. So much fecal matter has been hitting the proverbial device comprised of rotating blades that produce airflow, often for cooling that I've had little time to do whatever.

The IRS is on to me, for one. I forgot to declare I made a whooping 200 euros last year so I had to get that settled. Also, I've doubled my efforts into finding a job and waiting 2 to 4 hours in a job center can shave a few years off your lifespan. On top of that we've been aggresively house hunting, a need that has been further reaffirmed by the appearance of a large swarm of termites out of my kitchen wall. Not what you'd like to find when you come out of the bathroom wraped only in a towel. Oh and the front door of our building wouldn't open for almost a week. That was fun too.

While I was walking into the building, cursing 'cus the door aint fixed properly, the water people warned me that they're cuttingg our water supply to replace the pipes. Brilliant.

So excuse me now while I go bash some Ordas to take the edge off.

Santinha

Late Spring/early Summer always means summer colds.

Which in turn mean a big headache and a desire to do fuck all. So I haven't mustered much strength to hole up in the office and play WAR, let alone write about it. I've spent my time on Numblast, painting Mike's Dark Elf army and Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, I bought FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and Vagrant Story from the PSstore. Now if they would only release Xenogears, Saga Frontier 2 and Front Mission 3 I could brag about owning the "best of Square" collection again.

Good old days. Now excuse me while I stuff myself full of paracetamol.

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.

"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.

Shop of Horrors

Just a quickie one today, before i forget.

I had a dream about Tchar'zanek. Weird right? Weirder still: he was a merchant. He had like these pocket items and trophies on sale because I'd done like special assingments like Special Forces or something.

But Tchar was a mean merchant and he'd give u like two minutes to do your shopping. After that he opened the trapdoor and we'd all fall to a pit full of harpies and daemonettes and hounds and corpses of previous shoppers while he point&laughed.

Now, I'm a healer at heart so I know my way out of a sticky situation. So I healed myself into a courner and managed to reset the bastards. Yes, it's the only time when I can actually reset something. In my dreams.

I found out my corner was actually the inside of a lift and, very slowly and carefuly, I managed to get the doors closed, leaving the harpies behind. After it went backn up and me having to do some Prince of Persia (the new 360 version) around the palace, I went back to the good ol' boy and resumed my shopping. Repeat the whole trapdoor process. By now I was a pro. I don't know for how long this dream went on but let me tell you. I just now remembered it and it is weird. I mean, have I been playing too long that I now have dreams about loot that isn't there and sadistic NPCs? Sure, he's the NPC to end all NPCs but still...

It was really weird.

Chaos in the Old World

I try to get away from WAR, now and then. Mostly to go sleep or to indulge in some much needed bodily functions. But we've made a habit of taking weekend nights to visit our neighbours' house and having a game night. We can either rock out on our fake guitars with Rock Band, play Munchkin, build roads in Catan and we even gave Risk a go. I ended up starting with Mother Russia, lost it but, by golly, I won it back! And that single russian fended off wave after wave of invasions.

We have other 2 games we play regularly: Warhammer Invasion and Chaos in the Old World. You play as one of the four Chaos God and kill the other's minions and ruin places. Godly enough, in my opinion. I usually end up playing Tzeentch (not by choice, mind you, but the laws of the universe have decided that if I went Zealot and Magus, I must be Tzeentchian), but this time I gave Slaanesh a go.

Good times were had by all, as good times usually are, when there's alcohol involved.

Later we came back and back to WAR it was. I've been pretty lucky with our Mount Gunbad runs and I've gotten 2 Redeye setpieces so far. I decided to go full DPS on scenarios with Donkeywrath (with the odd healing now and then) and I decided not to specc out of the AoE tree. Turned out quite well. Chaotic Agitation is now among my favourite abilities in the game. It can crit up to 500 on mobs and 300ish on players. And it ticks lots. On lots of people.

Although in some scenarios I proved to be less effective, Talabec Dam turned out to be real sweet. Especially if we had other good healers in there and I could feel free to just kill and rez up. (Sorry for the uncropped pic, I cba to go to the laptop and crop it.)

All in all, I'm fairly pleased with my DPS and this might encourage even more people to stop picking at us. We can be helpful if you work with us, not against. And I still pick up a new set of tactics if we're short on healers. So, less bitching and more healer rolling, there's still not enough of us out there so that I can DPS moar!

On a side note, it seems our PvE runs are getting indefinitely postponed as the bossman is always sleeping now that he found a job. That Darkpromise set seems almost impossible to get by now. And don't get me started on my Sentinel boots...

What "Annoying" Is and Other Exciting Adventures

I live in a small country. Granted, we're not totally backwater anymore, but still a fairly small country. This does not annoy me. I'm patriotic, I swear. On the rare and much celebrated occasions when I can actually get myself to leave the house, I find myself looking up at the sky and feeling "man, I love being here." What does annoy me is the people.

Yes, it can be said I'm somewhat anti-social. Not quite a sociopath but not on the friendly side of the stick either. This, although it might annoy others, does not annoy me. I like not liking people. I'm the best company I could ever hope for. So it comes as a bit of a shock to some people the way I glare at them when we first meet. I don't mean any harm, I'm just sizing them up. Not liking people in the broader sense has made me a good judge of character.

It is with this good amount of anti-social experience that I can most definitely say that most portuguese players (henceforth known as "tugas") are OMGSTFU-annoying. Seriously. I've been approached, time and time again by the same people, always asking me if I would like to join their now defunct "national" guild. The concept of an all tuga guild always put me off but I never actually minded them. So it was with a smile on my face and a sprint in my step that I heard they were done with the "national" part of it. Still didn't stop them from trying to recruit me every other day. This I find annoying.

I feel nothing but pity for their guild leader, as he is one of the few I have no qualms with. But their so called recruiters have been nothing but disapointing and/or rude. So, if by some off-chance you all happen to read this (you know who you are) please, STOP trying to recruit me or even talking to me. I don't care. Oh, and I will let you die every time it is within my power to do so. That's for telling me to go fuck myself, you non-Dark Magic releasing and unpocketed Sorc.

On to happier and more exciting things.

Our first ToVL run, albeit a short one, was a success. Mostly because the very first thing that dropped on the very first boss was the Glyph of Ualatp: Khaldun. Sweet, eh? Take that, Sentinel boots! (no, they still haven't dropped). We breezed through the first boss fairly easily, even though we had no ranged dps and three tanks. And apparently they forgot to reaply the guard the dude supposedly strips.

Moving right along, we got to the second boss and this one took a few tries. I had seen it done in a youtube video from this guy so I knew how it could possibly be done. But, although someone said it would be better if I did it, I wasn't keen on trying to kite the thing. So we tried it this way, and that way, this kiter, that kiter all to no avail. Finally, I stepped up and did it. First try was fail, second try was total win. This was, all in all, the best solution because I was the least dps-capable of the bunch and I could spam Flash of Chaos on myself if he happened to hit me once (no saving if he hit me twice though). Seeing as we kited him on the platform I was still in range to use my morale 1, Tzeentch's Talon, to help them kill it a bit faster. I also threw in a Harbinger for good measure. So, down it went and we didn't even take too long.

Third boss, not so win. I must admit, I wasn't as effective as I could've been, mostly because I didn't know if I should be coming or going when the beam thingies started. I have since looked into the matter (AKA, watched more vids) and decided the dmg from the beams can be fairly easily outhealed and thus I won't have to move around much. Which is nice, considering Dust of Pandemonium has a long cast time. Good thing it's critting for more than 3k too.

Alas, our healer had to bail and we decided to try and do it some other time. We got out, Crimson killed us, we took some BOs, a keep, unlocked Cunning Evasion/Assault, sleep.

Now that I think of it, that was probably one of the most ORvR filled days I had in a long time. We had to farm resources to try and open LotD up and we always seemed to end up in the middle of a keep take. Which was nice, for a change. Also nice cuz i "/point & /lol"ed at the afore mentioned sorc after it died while trying to hide behind a courner while we valiantly fought off the ordas.

Oh, and don't think I forgot Kahliah, Oh Great Broodmother. Seeing as you believe we should raise our recruitment standards so that they match a certain "star quality", I give you another tuga (actually a bunch of them) who is beyond annoyng, he's downright hillarious. He's got "star quality" alright. His momma told him so. She also said he was "special".



All of them are great fun, aren't they?
Note especially at 3:46, when our friend answers the question "What is it you think you have?" There can be only one, indeed.
This one's for you, Broodmother.

Evolution

It's what life is all about. You're born (and if you live in southern US, you get to be in beauty pageants when you're 2 weeks old), you grow up, you learn how to do things and you evolve. You get better at doing such things (like using food utensils, or breathing through your nose) and you learn how to do new things and you get better at those too. And then you die.

Take my cat, for isntance. When we was younger he'd find the most weird positions to sleep in. Nowadays he just curls into a ball and sleeps, like regular cats. Every now and then you'll find him choking in his sleep because he fails to realise he can't rest his head directly on his nose but I have faith he'll come to that conclusion sometime in the near future. Miles wasn't the sharpest knife in the kitty drawer but that's why I picked him. Makes me look smarter in comparison. That and he bit me when we met. "Payback time, sucker".

I too, have evolved my play style in WAR so it is now easy for me to spot those who have, as of yet, failed to do so. I'm not the best Zealot in Norn, by far. A big part of that probably because I lack the decent gear to do so, but it seems to me that some have gone all the way to the higher renown ranks with very little evolution under their belt.

Take this SC, for example. Halfway through I had to switch to semi-healing mode because, frankly I was tired of dying and of all the dying going on around me. Makes me feel sick. Makes my throat sore because everytime a WE dies I, myself, make the same sound they do. Out of all the Zealots in the SC I was the lowest ranked one. "Oh yeah, but you're a twink you get better gear and stuffz from your main". The only thing I ever sent the Donkey from my main was rk39 gear which I probably won't even use. So that excuse falls short. Order won spectacularly, with their only two healers dishing out awesomeness left and right. I managed to get killed 5 times. Other healers managed to heal as much as I dealt damage and me, a dps specced Zealot, managed to heal double of what they healed. So I keep asking myself: what are they doing wrong or what is it that I'm doing so right? And why do I get yelled at for DPSing? :(

I'll share what I've come to learn about healing, especially in scenarios.

1. 
   
   I noticed some healers (some even in t4) don't know this but AoE heals aren't AoE. They're Group heals so they won't save that tank that happens to be in party 2.
2. 
   
   When in SCs, if you're like me and don't use Squared or Healgrid or something fancy like that, the game itself has an option to show you other parties just like if you were in a warband. At the start of a scenario, toggle on every other party other than your own.
3. 
   
   Throw HoTs (heal over time) around. This will really boost up your healing, especially if, like me, your AoE specced (I call it AoE cuz the damage abilities of the tree are AoE). It will also help healers in other parties keep their parties up.
4. 
   
   Resurrect. If you're not getting hit hard, take the time to rez other players. This is crucial as it prevents our front lines from falling back and creates what I call the "wall effect". More bodies between you and them is always nice. Obviously, always rez healers first even if you have to let a tank or a dps die to do so and especially if any other party has only one healer and that healer bites it. That dead healer drastically diminishes the survivability of all the other 5 players that were depending on it. Bottom line, if you see me die, rez pls. :)
5. 
   
   Strategic fall back. Healers have INSANE range. Nothing else has better range than a healer so stay back. If, however you depend on groupheals a lot, like me, you need to get closer because they nerffed the range on group heals. Just remember that, if the enemy charges, take a few steps back. Eventually, you develop a sixth-sense for wipes and you'll know how to pick your fights.

While on the topic of sixth-sense, we finally managed to do an LV run! It all came about when this Shaman, a fellow countryman of mine from D E C A D E N C E started yelling for an LV run. It was 2 am, I was bored, waiting for a lock that wasn't going to come, so I said "sure, I'll go". I got my Epikk and the boss to tag along and we found a DPS Chosen, Subah. For my delight, Silenz, this awesome sorc that I always try to heal in SCs cuz she kills lots and I want that assist renown, was also interested in coming so the party was set.

We get there and, what do you know, half the party had to go get the quest from Hellebron. So we wait patiently and when we finally get everyone back the Shaman goes "sry ppl gtg!" WTF, why do people start things they have no intention of finishing? The run wasn't obviously going to take the 10 minutes we had to wait for the quest issues. Still, we shrugged it off and found ourselves another healer, Kjx (who seems to have a very... interesting girlfriend). After he went to get the quest himself, he set off for the left wing. We get through all the bosses ok, with Nirvaesh MTing (MT stands for Main Tank if, like me, you don't know tankspeak) and Silenz sharing his/her wisdom on boss tactics. We even only wiped once on the big spider thingy and it wasn't a big deal because I always make sure we wait until I can slap on my Mark of Remaking (henceforth known as selfres or autores). In the end I finally got one (better than nothing) Darkpromise piece. It was only the belt but I also got a belt for Dex so it wasn't a total loss (too bad the weapons are bind on pickup because we got a weapon for Magus that was crappy but was alliteration goodness: Dekelex, Dreadstaff of Devouring). Too bad for the Shaman that he left because Shaman dropped twice. Mike also got 2 DP pieces for Epikk and a 3%crit choppa. He's now sporting 3 DP pieces and some conqueror, the DP weapon and the BS weapon. Sweet, sweet choppin.

So, why all the "sixth-sense" thing? At a certain point we were killing some random mobs that were a bit tricky and, all of a sudden, some rhino-like piggies come stampeding down. From the rate of our healing and the rate of their hitting I was sure after the first few seconds that we weren't going to keep up. So i slapped on the selfres and, sure enough, down we went. Just one thing about selfrezing Zealots. If you have one in your party and it dies and then your other healer dies or just isnt able to keep the MT up, stop trying. Like any rez, selfres gives you a 30sec timer. If the whole party doesn't die in those 30secs and the boss doesn't reset its quite pointless. So make with the dying.

It was a pretty sweet run. We did all but the middle wing, even with half of us half asleep already. Nirvaesh's tanking was up to what I expect from him and Subah did an awesome job for a DPS Chosen, I must say. Kjx was a big help with his quicker group-heal to keep us up between my long casts and wasn't afraid to help DPS when needed. In the end, we managed to pleasantly surprise ourselves and The End, with all its highly-evolved players, made a good impression on these bigger-guilded players.

LONG POST IS LONG!

Battle Object... Is this some kind of weapon?

The WAR blogging world has been up in arms about this little jem of a review and I agree. It's a load of bull. But I'm not going to dwell on every factual mistake the guy made. Not only are they obvious but Shadow-war and Bootae hade done a stellar job at it already. I must say though, one of my biggest gripes with it (me being somewhat of a linguist) is the "run over large areas to defend a Battle Object or Keep" line. "Oh Lord, they are attacking the Trebuchet! We must defend! RAWR!"

Still, I was even more apalled at the subsequent comments at this so-called review. I clicked on the link expecting to see reflected on other posts what I myself had felt when reading it. Something not too far from the need to gag. But imagine my amazement when people left and right were actually agreeing to this nonsense with the suposed authority that they HAD played the game. If they had would they have not noticed the blatant falacies of the wannabe-article? Like the inacuracy of, say, the number of pairings or the "races" you can actually play?

Taking this small sample of people (or should I just call them WoW players cuz that's what they are, really) WAR's biggest problem is the lack of PvE content. *snickers* Ok, I'll give them that. You do have a lot of mobs in the game but yes, they all behave the same. A wolf and a halberdier will behave the same. After all, they're both out to kill you and their sense of preservation triggers only when their death is already inevitable. And yes, there are few PvE instances (just HV, Mt Gunbad, BS, Saccelum, BE, BB and its Order counterparts, LV, LoTD -although not an instance-, every tomb in LoTD and ToVL that I can think of).

Apparently SCs are WAR's downfall because they're murdering ORvR. They could be onto something there. I, myself, haven't done ORvR in about a month or so but that could be because I hadn't done anything else for so long. So now, on Order side, We're mostly chilling in Sigmar's Hammer (lord, that place is tiny) and queueing back-to-back. This doesn't mean that everyone else has given up on ORvR. In fact, the most blatant proof that they haven't is the constant IC/Altdorf pushes with multiple King Kills a day.

"Oh but there isn't enough content for us solo players?" Could there ever BE a more no-lifer argument? Srsly? There are hundreds if not thousands of people playing the same game you are, in the same server, possibly in the same zone but you're so socially underdeveloped that you REQUIRE to play the game solo? If that's not the case, if you simply just chose to visit a stale zone at a dead time of day and you feel like playing, well, do a few quests, Epic Quests will keep you busy. Or better yet, go read a book and come back at a decent time, dimwit.

I admit, I'm not a good critic of these people. I'm a WAR player and before I was, I was a MMORPG virgin. So WAR is pretty much all I know. Maybe WoW or whatever had some riveting PvE content but, as Shadow-war said before me, I just can't feel an emotional connection to an NPC. I just know that every mdps trying to kill me just sighs and frowns when they realise their inability to do so and I love that. I love knowing that, a few thousand miles away, there's someone just a liiiittle bit more frustrated and it's because of me.

Fire Hazard

There are some inherent hazards to gaming. Most of us have come across the "Tasty Beverage Vs Keyboard" and the family attriction ones. Other difficulties and challenges include swelling of the bladder, the "OMGthepizzaguy'satthedoorbutifIstophealingwealldie" syndrome and the failure to realize what time it is until RvR dies down and then you've only got 2 hours of sleeping time left.

But never had I thought that I would one day find myself typing "lol my desk just caught on fire." Fret not, it wasn't a leaping flames kind of accident. More of a persistent foul smell and scattered ashes affair.

As any smoking WAR player that is allowed/wishes to smoke while playing knows, every now and then, a coffin nail will wither to ash without as much as three puffs worth of emphysema taken from it. What I now advise is to make sure you let them go to waste AWAY from pack wraping plastic.

This ended up sounding like an anti-smoking manifesto (and if that's how you wanna take it, more power to ya) but it was intended to just be a medium of sharing the changes introduced to my life by WAR. I've learned alot, including:

• Zone lock leeching (i hear some call it "freenowning from zone flips" Òó) is not conducive to productive studying.
• If you only have 20 minutes before you have to leave but you just want to get that one SC in before you go, you're gonna be late.
• Mind the clock if you're not planning on cooking for dinner tonight. Pizza delivery people need to get home to their chars too.
• Have a fire extinguisher handy (I do).

But don't give up on gaming just because it's hazardous. After all, what isn't? Couch-potatoeing leads to cardiac arrest (you know I'm right) as does jogging or strenuous excercise (ok, maybe less so) and people even die in their sleep! Setting your house on fire seems like a minor setback now, doesn't it?