Poll Of DOOM: Content Edition

I like getting feedback from my readers, it gives me this warm and fuzzy feeling.

While I take a break from these Fire Service surveys (the usual – budgets, apparatus, except it’s for the entire country and composed entirely of tickyboxes … it’s a good thing I’m not a Fire Chief, I’d be like, “EEE TICKYBOXES”), I’d like to inform you all of what I’m going to do with the results of Ye Old Sidebar Survey.

What it told me is this: Y’all like sexy pictures and tickyboxes. The other thing it told me is that there isn’t anything – of my usual offerings – that folk don’t wanna see, but there’s a desire for more Grin’dal.

This makes his ego very very large and unwieldy and I’m afraid he’s going to hit me with it if he turns around. Figuratively speaking. Grin’dal’s not real, of course (just don’t tell him I said that).

So, watch for more fiction, Grin’dal posts, LFG tales and the like as time goes on. Postings have been sporadic and very ‘meh’ due to a lot of busy in real life (my birthday was last week, I’ve been dealing with crazy back pain for the past week and a half, I’ve had a lot of projects to do at work), but it seems that my muse(s) are starting to crawl back to the surface. Good news, indeed. Also? Quick and Dirty Guides. They’ll get their own page to make it easier to find them, too.

The next poll will go up soon – once I figure out what it is!

The Return of Varkev Hammerhoof

Varkev was one of my first alts on Thorium Brotherhood.

He was also my very first RP character in WoW, predating Mama Lana by several months. The character was rolled on Eredar as a Tauren Warrior before I abandoned that server and moved to Thorium Brotherhood, where he was rolled as a Tauren Hunter. The patient, slow-speaking young Tauren developed through his entry into the Harbingers of War, the insanity and death of his half-sister and an attempt at Druidry before I finally deleted him and sent the character off, off-screen,  into Northrend. My new druid was his sister, Ipolani, and gradually I found that I really didn’t know her as well as I had thought, that she was a lot harder for me to play than Varkev had ever been.

All I had to do was understand something very, very important about Varkev:

He’s not an idiot.

I think this was a fact that was difficult to translate for those that played with him, too, because of the way he interacted with people and his habit of mixing up robes with dresses (they were the same thing, as far as he was concerned). His speech, in Orcish, was almost child-like, he was long-winded – often taking several statements to get to his point – and his patience was interpreted as him being slow.

Varkev Hammerhoof is a patient, gracious man who is very comfortable with himself; he is quite happy to wander around a city in a pink dress if he feels like it, and he is just as able to sport the heavy leather armour of the Bear Brother that he is. He’s willing to stand back and heal, or rush forward and take a few fists to the face.

He’s also eccentric.

His trip into Northrend drastically changed him and made him understand things that he had never understood before, but just what, even I’m not certain of yet. Perhaps it forced him to grow up.

Now, Varkev is a level 71 Tauren Druid with a Bear and Tree spec available to him. As a Bear, his health sits around the 12k mark, with some rather impressive (to me, at least) avoidance stats and what appears to be decent damage numbers. He is prepared to take on the threats of Northrend with some macros, spec and rotation advice offered in some of BBB’s Bear-Tanking Intro posts.

And I am feeling more comfortable with this character than I ever had before. It’s almost like, shoving him into the back of my head and forcing myself not to try to get into him, effectively “killing” him for a while, made us come to some understandings with each other. His sister standing in for him seemed to make it easier to step into him.

Add onto the fact that I’m far, far more comfortable playing men (most of the time) than women, and I wonder why it took us so long to figure things out.

This is Varkev Hammerhoof, and he’s back and ready to start eating some faces.

Glory to the Horde!

… One day I will get myself a decent, non-GIMP, image-editing program for work. ONE DAY. And yes I was totally lazy with the image BUT AT LEAST THIS TIME I HAVE A PICTURE.

[Story] Fire in the Sky

[ Dybo is my rogue. He's had a rather lengthy inactive time, so I figured that, to explain it, I better do something to him - and what better way to introduce my Orc Death Knight, Nyarah? ]

Read more »

Regarding the Poll

To whoever voted for “Screw it, take all three”, I love you.

To make this post less of a waste of time, here are my feelings regarding attempting to run an instance and give advice while on cold meds, as well as on people that don’t bother to research their class themselves (Fire Blast as the main part of one’s rotation, really?):

ETA: I’ve been known to type “WHARGARBL” in my guild’s OOC instead of *flails and foams as she rages incoherently* when dealing with Stupid elsewhere. Like in lowbie dungeons. I THINK IT IS TIME FOR A NEW POLL.

This week is Troll Bouquet on Cold Meds. My Gods the mix of the nighttime ones with my prescription medication is just horrible but when choosing between “space cadet” and “omg can’t breathe my nose is falling off my face” I take the first option.

I Has Seekrit.

I has a seekrit.

No, I’m not a Troll in real life – that would make working with the fire service a bit more challenging than it is, what with having bones sticking out of my face and a wild hairdo. No.

I… like watching train wrecks.

I’m a member of a couple of Livejournal snark communities – including warcraftsues, bad_rpers_suck and dot_pagan_snark – and I frequently bounce my snarky tendencies off my friends. I’m a snarky person. The only thing that stops me from being directly snarky to people, more often than not, is that, well, I’m not a big fan of confrontation.

So, suffice it to say I… kind of like watching drama that doesn’t involve me or my friends.

I’m a voyeur.

This is probably why I’m a big fan of in-character drama, why I drool a little over the possibility of getting some of my characters into trouble or watching other characters deal with crap being flung their way.

I think that’s one reason why I’m a roleplayer – I can watch all this cray-cray shit happen to these fictional beings without having anything happen to me. I mean, not counting dealing with players that are equally cray-cray as the shit that goes down (I could tell such stories), of course.

Tell me I’m not the only one.

A Tip For Those Who Share A Battle Group With An RP Server

Sunday night, I decided to help a guildie with learning this whole healing thing by tanking Drak’tharon Keep. I was on Matojo, Wyat was DPSing as Pierse and Najat was the level 80 Disc priest that was healing my little blue ass.

I love being healed by Discipline Priests and Resto Shamans because, assuming their gear is at least okay, I can keep pulling and they rarely run low on mana – yay!

Well, some poor bastard from Jubei’thos – Smite, I think it was – decided to start whining about RP realms and how they should have their own battle group. Hey, I agree – most RPers do – but for completely different reasons. After I told her that she should really watch herself since 3/5 of her groupmates are from the same RP server, she promptly sealed her fate with more whining along the lines of, “Oh God why”, and I initiated vote to kick.

Frankly, my dears, if you’re going to be like that you don’t deserve to run with me and I don’t want to dent my 18k health pool (22k buffed, which… I can’t imagine what it’ll be at 80 if I keep up with his gear, enchants and gemming) for you, so get out.

“But Mat!” You cry, “That was so mean! You should have given that person a chance!”

Eff that, man.

I deal with a small amount of shit for my server, and that amount is enough to make me very protective and defensive when it comes to TB. I often hear the following, in no particular order, from various sources (including LJ):

• “RPers are scrubs.”
• “RP on TB is dead.” (FUCK YOOOU)
• “You’re on a RP realm? Fail.”
• At this point I’ve run out of examples because the cold meds are starting to stomp on my head.

So, naturally, I’m not gonna put up with that shit when I can help it.

Remember, folks: Roleplayer does not automatically equal “shitty player”. You go ahead and keep up pulling stupid shit, though – I enjoy biting back, and I bite just as hard as any other player.

RP Fail.

I wish people weren’t so private with their RP and actually RPed randomly instead of only in their guild setting. Lots of good RPers who ignore random RP.

~ Member of RP Community

Oh, really?

I would have more stock in this if it was from somebody that didn’t demonstrate trollish behaviour on the official forums, who didn’t frequently create guilds for the sake of “saving” RP on my server and who didn’t play a Tauren banshee with mechanical legs at one time or another.

I guess I’m an elitist!

When I actually stick my face out into the crowd, I do my best to include strangers, random RPers, even people I don’t like (assuming they aren’t the people that have caused me a ton of grief, those people can go fuck themselves with a rusty fork).

“But Matojo!” You cry, “People privatising RP is a big problem! Something has to be done! RP is dying!”

Really now?

I think the bigger problem is the Chicken Little Syndrome.

Allow me to explain.

Chicken Little Syndrome is when members of a server’s Roleplay community – usually individuals with a reputation as attention-seekers (much nicer description than what I was originally going to type) or people that have never done anything but complain, anyway – begin to cry out that RP on the server is dead, it needs saving, oh woe is the RP. They blame the cliques, they blame the PvPers, they blame the raiders, they blame everyone and everything under the sun.

Yet, when I’ve seen these individuals at events (namely, The Drunken Kodo, I have yet to see them at The Refuge’s Campfire), their interaction with other people consists of talking to themselves in their own language, or simply making a rude remark or two and not really trying to engage others, among other behaviours that don’t encourage characters to try to interact with them.

When the local RP Hermit (Me) can happily poke and prod at people when she shows up to things, there is a problem. That problem isn’t the server, in that case, nor is it the community.

Guess what?

RP requires effort on the part of the individual. There is nothing wrong with RPers sticking to their guilds if that’s what makes them happy, and the more that people complain, the less likely we are to poke our heads out.

Also consider this: People like me, who have been playing for a long time, have also had a large share of drama of our own. We’ve learned what type of people are more likely to create problems and, as such, we strive to avoid that. If one finds people actively avoiding RP with them (and I mean, completely ignoring their actions and refusing to speak to them if the setting isn’t insanely busy like many public events are), the problem may not be them. The problem may be you.

The saying is “once bitten, twice shy”. I’ve been bitten before, so have members of my guild. We are tired of bullshit so we’re very careful of who we let in – at least, to the Big Stuff – but we still ask that you aren’t afraid to approach us when you see us sitting around a campfire and boozing. Yes, the Harbingers of War are tight-knit and a clique of a fashion, but all guilds are, and we’re also fairly easy to get along with.

Generally, this is the case with most RP guilds if other people are willing to put in the effort.

My point is this: RP never, ever, ever just comes to you. It requires effort, it requires care and hard work. It’s something that, if you try, if you work at it, it will yield great rewards – but if you spend a lot of time b’awwwing about the lack of it, all you’ll do is continue to push it away.

Want to make guilds? Great, develop a story, advertise, pimp, openly recruit, be loud and be proud.

Don’t make it your personal mission to “save” RP anywhere – that just turns people off. RP for the sake of RPing and leave it at that. If you play a character that isn’t very social, don’t complain about lack of RP – develop some characters that are or concoct a reason for that character to speak up. Does he have strong opinions? Maybe s/he pulls something stupid or inherits a pet or magical object that just doesn’t agree with him.

Most of all?

BE CREATIVE.

Bitching? Gets you nowhere.

Bad Matojo, no bikkit. Stop cannibalizing your own Godsdamned community.

How to Make a Cranky Matojo – Healer Edition

WoW_Ladies got me off on a little tangent, of course, so I figured I’d expand here.

I can be a pretty cranky healer (some days, I even reach Angry Healer level). For some of my friends, that’s the appeal of having me along – if people are being idiots I’ll say so and I occasionally pay enough attention to be able to give pointers on what to do (whether or not people actually listen to me, I don’t know). When I’m not running into pats. Or getting lost. Or jumping around. Or dancing. Or spacing out. Or being chewed on by the cat (“NO SIMON NO NOT WHILE I’M HEALING AUGH MY FEETS – theregoesmymouse”). For the most part, I’m pretty chill.

But there are ways to wind up on my shit list, oh yes, and some of them are fairly common for most healers.

1. Don’t run back after a wipe, just wait for me to rez you. That is, after all, what my mana is for, right? You might as well save your mana and food for soloing! I’ll just take my time getting to you. First, I’ll have to drink – gotta have full mana to rez the lazy bastard! – and then play with the cat. Oh, and feed the cat. And rescue the dude that got lost on his way back. And and and…
2. Don’t eat or drink. My mana, after all, is endless and there’s no way in hell that I pay the same amount of in-game currency for my stacks of water and food as you. Besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do while waiting for me to get my health and mana back, nope. Standing around with your thumb up your ass is a much better use of your time.
3. “Rez plz. Rez plz. Can I get a rez?” OH! How silly of me, I didn’t notice that your health bar was empty and that you were lying on the floor THANKS FOR REMINDING ME. I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN TO REZ YOU IF YOU DIDN’T ASK. YOU KNOW, IF MY HEAD WASN’T STUCK BETWEEN MY SHOULDERS I WOULD FORGET THAT TOO, LULZ AND SO FORTH.
4. Treat other party members – especially those who have my guild tag above their heads (<Harbingers of War> and <The Refuge>, respectively) – like shit. Bonus points if it’s the tank and his name is Wyat/Sorchia/Shaliandra or Rikua or Violeta/Cyael or Douzer and his disguises.
5. Please tell me how to do my job, because I obviously haven’t been healing for ages and don’t know my head from my ass.
6. Trigger events if you’re not the tank. Go ahead, do it. I hear the floor is nice this time of year.

So, dear other party members, if you’re a decent human being with only a small stupid streak, I’ll be decent right back!

What do other players have to do to wind up on your shitlist, readers?

Ranting on a FailKnight

Good morning, audience!

This weekend, I had the pleasure of schooling a fellow Death Knight in the art of not sucking. Sort of. It was more a matter of me foaming at the mouth and him saying “I’ll change, I’ll change”. Whether or not he’ll listen to me is a topic for another post.

In a conversation on how well Death Knights manage the damage they take, I pointed out that I am not too difficult to heal – in fact, I’m apparently so easy that my friend Wyat, on his slightly lowly geared but nonetheless awesome shaman, was letting me take damage because he was bored. This Knight, who I shall name Mo, told the channel that a healer once told him that he was harder to heal than her Death Knight friend.

“Then you have a gear issue,” I said as I pulled up Armory.

I found:

• A distinct lack of enchants.
• Two pure parry gems.
• This spec.
• Dual wielding – without DW talents!

“No, nevermind,” I added. “You have more issues than just gear.”

If one intends to tank, please, for the love of kittens (and to save yourself from being brutally torn asunder by serious or semi-serious DK tanks like myself) – take the first-tier tanking talents. They are: Blade Barrier, Toughness and Anticipation. In the course of making use of your skill priority, Blade Barrier will activate (whenever your Blood Runes are on cooldown), which gives your healer some time to recover. Toughness adds to the reduction in squishy by adding more armour to what you already have. Anticipation gives you more dodge – everybody likes dodge!

Parry gems are problematic because parry suffers more from diminishing returns than dodge does (the curve for DR on Dodge is 88%, 47% for Parry). I would suggest Regal Twilight Opal/Regal Dreadstone for the stamina (Enduring Forest Emerald/Enduring Eye of Zul if one needs to hit the defense cap but doesn’t need enough to warrant a pure Defense gem, I’m using Stalwart gems in my red slots until I figure out how to re-arrange my gemming now that I’m at the Defense cap). Those who raid will be gemming for stamina regardless of socket bonuses – remember, raids are not my focus.

Regarding dual wielding: Unless you have the proper fucking talents, don’t do it. A lot of people go on about how dual wield tanking is so not something that should be done and omg! Dual wield tanks suck – those people are about a patch behind. Dual wield tanking is viable with the proper set of talents and stats, end of story. There, I said it. Don’t believe me? Read Chill of the Grave. You also might want to check out TankSpot’s Death Knight Tank Guide.

Next – enchant your gear. ILevel 200 blues? Enchant them. Greens? Get thee to the Auction House, and if you don’t have any money, what the hell? Check the categories. I’m not going over making money in this article. Buy yourself some entry-level crafted tanking gear (Tempered Saronite, Tempred Titansteel, Titanium Rings and Necklaces), then enchant.

TL;DR – ATTENTION FAILKNIGHTS: Get yourself a proper tank spec. Look! Two examples and three templates. Enchant your gear. Hit Defense cap, then start upping your Stamina while getting the Hit and Expertise soft caps with some Strength, Dodge and Parry on the side. Don’t dual wield if you’re not using the proper Frost talents.

Remember: If you find that you’re squishier than you’d like – check your spec, then your stats, gear, gems and enchants and finally, your rotation/priority system. There is always a way to fix it, and it is not the class. We are spiky, not squishy.

Introducing Kajah and the Alliance Update

Over the weekend, my Moon Guard Death Knight, Relimna, reached 300 herbalism to go with her 300 mining, dinged 60, and then I race-changed her into a Dwarf. I was really stuck on what to name her, though, so I went with Kajah.

In my head-canon, the real Kajah is a Victorian Werewolf sort. She’s extremely eccentric, aloof and an X-Men fan character (though she can and does stand alone – she insists on it). Sometimes I think of her as a werehyena, because hyenas are awesome, though for simplicity’s sake a werewolf works as well.

No, Dwarf Kajah will not be a Worgen in the guise of a Dwarf or some other such nonsense. She’s a run-of-the-mill, undead Dwarven woman with a penchant for taking hits to the face. She is an Unholy Tank with a Ghoul companion that she has named Mortimer and who may or may not have been her now-deceased husband in life. This Kajah will be as eccentric and detached as the real one – I hope – though she is most certainly dead. I cannot tell you if she’s rotting or not because I’m not going to take off her armour/clothing and check, and neither is anyone else – but beneath the scents of cigar smoke, cheap mead and crushed Felweed, there is indeed something foul.

The MG crew got a little monetary boost with the sales of Kajah’s ore – Mithril is crazy expensive over there – and some of her herbs. Tristynne has given up trying to sell glyphs/ink and sells her pigments instead, I’m guessing people buy those to level with, I’m not sure why. Taashti went Disc, but I haven’t actually attempted healing with her yet (NO PRAYER OF MENDING, OMG, HOW WILL I SURVIVE).

Did I mention that the queue on Moon Guard for a level 60 tank was … about 20 minutes? No lie. This was also kinda late at night, though, so maybe it’ll be better at another point.

I haven’t been on MG much lately as I’ve been working on Masamba and Delplas, so my time has been eaten up by all of that. I am hoping to finish pushing Daniil to 10 so I can get Garios to 15, then Daniil to 15, then attempt the LFG project with those two.