Friday, August 25, 2006

Rogue Review Review

Okay, since I'm a rogue and all, and the rogue review just came out, and I've actually applied my talent points, oboy, I figured it'd be appropriate for me to comment on this newest patch.

I'm taking excerpts from the patch that I want to talk about, ignoring the rest.

Hey, this might be fun.


Cross-Realm Battlegrounds - Blah. Haven't tried it yet, but I hear it's good for some. I'm disappointed that they didn't incorporate the "no degradation of honor" yet. Waiting for the expansion, my arse.


World PvP - Blah. I played around a few towers in EPL, but it's basically, can you stand there? Yeah? Okay, it's yours. Wait, holdon. It's more like, can you stand at an old, run-down, useless, abandoned tower with absolutely no strategic advantage whatsoever in the fight against the scourge OR the opposing faction? Yeah? Okay, it's yours.


The deserter debuff will now continue to expire even while you are offline. - As it should.

Rogues
Due to significant talent changes, Rogues will have all talent points refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell replacements have been significantly reduced.

Eviscerate: Manual of Eviscerate (Rank 9) now drops somewhere in the world.
Garrote: The damage from this ability has been increased approximately 50%.
Relentless Strikes: This ability will no longer trigger when your finishing move does not hit your target.
Sap: Enemy rogues will now always lose stealth when you Sap them.


Bla blah blah.

Okay, briefly, they screwed over rogues. Again. Badly.

First, for most other reviews, there was a major talent overhaul. I'm not necessarily saying it was bad that they didn't overhaul the rogue talent set (they did change a few things), but the things they changed were mild, and they didn't really address major issues that have been brought up over the years this game has been around. For instance, no realistic fist weapon talent.

They also let rogues down by ignoring the lack of rogue-specific game content. They should have established a "rogues' guild" faction that might rival the current Ravenwhatever faction that's currently worthless. They should have infused some life into a new series of rogue quests allowing all manner of rogue to accomplish things that no other class could, and that highlight unique rogue abilities. Lockpicking, pickpocketing, trap detection, stealth, all combined could make for a few very fun, complicated, and worthwhile adventures with very little added work on the part of the developers. How come the last time I got to use that stuff was when I was getting my poison quest at like level 20? So disappointed that they could put all that work into a week of the lamest scourge invasion imagineable, and not add a few decent rogue quests. Shame on you, Blizzard.

Ah, no, but Blizzard knows how to treat its customers. Instead of giving to rogues for their review, Blizzard TAKES AWAY! Remember a few patches ago, when they "fixed" that coding OVERSIGHT that made our poisons DISAPPEAR every time we went in or out of an instance? You know, the one that made battlegrounds a logistical nightmare of trying to restock poisons constantly because you either win or lose every five minutes, which means a five hour night runs you about 60-70 poisons? Yeah, that BS. Remember that it took Blizzard a YEAR to "fix" that little problem, while concentrating more on expanding end-game content for 40-man raid groups, pretending to cater to the casual player by making us go through high level instances... with a raid group.... to get cheap-ass upgrades to gear that most 60s start collecting at about level 55? Anyway, if you remember or acknowledge any of that, just realize that Blizzard has turned you away, happy, and ambushed/backstabbed/blinded/ambushed/backstabbed/backstabbed, and generally just screwed you over while you were busy setting up your "new" talent points. Yes, indeed, Blizzard reneged and re-established the loss of poisons lack of code. Why? Because of some technology thing. HUHWHA? It's like... if mages all of a sudden couldn't make water, and Blizzard said, sorry, you never actually "could" make water. That was just a temporary fix on a bigger problem, and by allowing you to make water now, it has the potential to do something technological that will cause other things not to work right... we think. So, we'll let you make water again when the EXPANSION COMES OUT YOU'DBETTERGETITORYOU'LLBELEFTOUTANDWILLNEVERBEABLETOMAKEWATERAGAINHAHAHAH!

Bastards.

Okay, that rant temporarily over.

I don't usually discuss my talent spec in public. Or generally anywhere. I like to keep it hush. Well, I used to. I almost don't really care nowadays. I guess my fear of being scorned for my odd ways has dwindled along with how much I really care. Since I can't even access any of the talent trees from work, nor my character profile, I cannot post them all yet. However, I'll tell you that my spec is currently 20/31/0.

If that means anything to you, then great.

I'm still mace-specced, which, since I have maces, is the way to go. My unbuffed attack power is like 839 or something, and health is 3800 or so. The nice thing about my build is that although my attack power isn't as high as I would like, I have some nice gear that gives me extra swings, and my talents actually add a lot of dps. I can also survive a bit longer than many other pve rogues due to my higher health.

Yeah yeah, I'm not all decked out in epics, so stop right there with any potential criticism. I'm working my way up the ladder just like all the other peeps who work 10-11 hours a day, and play significantly less. I also refuse to join a teen-run all-out "raid guild" whose aspirations include seeing who can insult other guild members most with racist, sexist, crude comments, and who will get their first ever view of a real-live used pair of panties.

Speaking of which, why does a single "item" get called a "pair"?

Anyway, so I'm sticking with my sister guilds, and we're currently conquering ZG. I think my new talents will help a lot, and I've already seen a boost to my dps. Since I'm always on top of the damage charts (when I'm not too preoccupied), I think this will be even better.

I'll post detailed info about my spec and gear whenever I pick the best publicly accessible gear/spec/whatever online character profile thingy. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Site Analysis



Thanks to Google and Roguespot. :)

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My Guilds & Some ZG Stuff

Yeah, my guild situation is interesting and unique. I know I don't talk about it much, but it's important to note my current situation.

Here's the briefest (is that a word) explanation:

- Main guild was Pathos Hammer
- Guild was a 180 member "feeder" guild
- We were not doing high-end content
- Dismayed level 60s were leaving to go gear grind with @ssh@t guilds
- I could have perpetuated that state of being... and I would have probably quit in a fit of depression
- Instead, I formed a sister guild, Forge, designed specifically to allow level 60 Pathos Hammer members who wanted end-game stuff an opportunity to maintain continuity with Pathos Hammer
- Of course, everyone told me it wouldn't work
- Everyone loves telling me how things won't work
- It worked.

- So, I run two guilds now.
- Pathos Hammer is effectively run by a council, and really gets along because of our philosophy of friendship, family, and forgiveness. Oh, and fun.
- Forge gets along because I'm strict, we have scheduled end-game runs, the members are wholly devoted to end-game stuff, and we can act more like adults (it's family, but more like when the kids go to sleep)

So far, we've been running ZG about twice a week. Once in a while, we'll go take out Kurinnaxx in AQ20. He's a breeze.

When we started trying ZG, it was a mess. We managed okay with Venoxis (the first boss we tried), but were having a hell of a time with the bat boss. But, through persistence and the Forge spearheading the events, we started learning these bosses. We were told that we would have hella trouble with the bat boss. We got her in a few tries. We did have a lot of trouble with the spider boss. But we were able to overcome that obstacle, as well. After a few weeks, we eventually made our way to the tiger boss. We one-shotted the tiger boss. (that means we killed the guy the first time around, none of us ever having even seen him before!!!)

We were amazed.

Yeah, sure, the panther boss gave us a fit. But sometimes you gotta wipe 5 times on a boss to learn it. We learned it. We beat it. That's what makes it all fun and worth it. Learning, overcoming.

Okay, so we took down 5 ZG bosses. Tried Hakkar. Oboy, we sucked at Hakkar! Hahah. Can't beat him yet, but we're working on it. I'll let you know when we've knocked that smirk off his scaly face.

In the meantime, feel free to download and watch the video I made of us taking on the 5 bosses. (Yeah, my Venoxis movie was kinda screwed up, so I did what I did in the video on purpose). Heck, watching these movies, you might get an idea of how to beat some of these guys! Hah.

Right-click, and save as:

Teh Moovee

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

20,000

No, not leagues under the sea.
No, not my annual bonus. ( I wish!)
No, not how much the U.S. deficit is in hundreds of thousands (which would be 20,000,000,000), but probably close.

Yes, it's the number of unique visits to Psyae's WoW Et Cetera since I long ago implemented Site Meter. Yey.

More specifically, as of when I just now checked, I've had 20,418 total individual "visits", which doesn't count revisits by the same IP address.

Yey.

Celebrate.

Yey.

Oh, hey, new pic. This will look cool:




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